Last week, Viacom pulled 26 of their channels from DirecTV to instill anger in the hearts of DirecTV subscribers, but now, they’ve put back The Daily Show and The Colbert Report back online.   So is Viacom surrendering?

Viacom is demanding DirecTV pay a higher fee, as much as other distributors are paying Viacom for their shows.  But DirecTV will have none of that, as they are not willing to give up the terms that put them in favor with consumers.  So Viacom took their shows off line, denying access to DirecTV subscribers and everyone else in the process.

But it seems like the blackout is no longer in effect when The Daily Show and the Colbert Report were reinstated.  Could the feud be ending?  Or Viacom just doesn’t want to deal with an angry mob of viewers for their two most popular shows?

“You will remember that we never said we were taking all our full length episodes down, just sliming down our offerings,” Viacom spokesman Carl Folta said.  “The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were on hiatus, so no recent programs were available. We know their fans have missed them — and sadly subscribers of DirecTV who have not yet switched distributors are still forced to be without all the Viacom networks they love — so we wanted to get them back on our sites as soon as we could.”

So it’s still not clear whether Viacom and DirecTV have come to terms, but one thing’s obvious – Viacom doesn’t want to lose DirecTV viewers.  So are we to see more Viacom shows back online?  That’s still uncertain.

It’s hard to say how when feud is going to end, but it better end soon before viewers smarten up and avoid watching stuff on TV or online and just engross themselves in reading books or doing something worthwhile.