EDIT:

Here is an official response from Comedy Central via the Colbert Nation boards:

On April 28 we restricted access to full episodes of The Colbert Report for several countries outside of the U.S. We did so at the request of the content licensees who control the television broadcast rights to the show in those respective territories.

We want to make it clear that we hear you, the Colbert Report fans. We read your posts and comments on the boards. And given the very reasonable user feedback you’ve posted, we fully appreciate that fans of the show outside of the U.S. want access to full episodes. Regrettably, the nature of international licensing makes that extremely complicated.

Please know that Comedy Central will continue to work with local TV broadcasters around the globe in hopes of granting access to these episodes in your country. In the meantime, you still have access to the rest of Colbertnation.com, including these forums.

Thanks for your understanding.

THE PROBLEMS:

Viacom blocks non-US viewers from ColbertNation.com

This week has been absolutely atrocious for non-American viewers of ‘The Colbert Report’. First, the Viacom web team added a location lock to ColbertNation.com, and now it is blocking an even larger portion of the international Colbert fan base. We know access is no longer available in New Zealand and Australia, but we’re getting reports from Europe that the site is no longer available in countries there either, including Finland. Hulu has been blocked for non-US viewers for years, so that is yet another roadblock to Colbert fans.

FXUK no longer carries ‘The Colbert Report’

Next, UK viewers of ‘The Colbert Report’ noticed that FXUK did not have ‘The Colbert Report’ on next week’s schedule. They were lucky to even know where to look, as the show has shuffled around on the schedule quite a bit since the first of the year. The only source available to verify the status of the show (other than the rather obvious strategy of perusing the listings for next week) is a post on the Digital Spy forums:

As for Colbert, the bad news is our license for it runs out on May 1st, we’ve had it for a year, WE love it, but its just not getting the viewers, and it’s a fairly costly process getting it sent over from the States on a daily basis, its a shame, but thats TV, it’s properly ruined my mornings, it’s the first thing I do usually.

This, fellow Zoners, is the suck.

THE SOLUTIONS:

Disclaimer

We here at No Fact Zone support Viacom and all the money they pay Stephen to do his wonderful show. We strongly encourage watching ads in their entirety while watching embedded and streaming videos from ColbertNation.com and Hulu.com. We also support the purchase of videos and licensed products from the Comedy Central store.

We understand that without a verifiable source of revenue, it is much more difficult to recruit advertisers to online streams, which means that Viacom is supporting online product with no income to pay for it. I get that. I can also understand that somewhere in the background is a beautiful and sexy team of lawyers who smell of roses and cupcakes whose specialty is regional licensing and hopefully not taking down fan blogs who only exist to serve the needs of the fans and Viacom’s product. It makes sense not to support use by non-American viewers who most probably can’t even buy the products that the advertisers sell.

That being said …

There are fans of Colbert who no longer have a way to see Colbert, and as a fellow fan I can totally understand the pain of these international fans.

There are few precious alternatives to watching the ‘Colbert Report’ if you have no standard options. But luckily, there are in fact a few options. Here are the alternatives we know of – feel free to post any others that you know of in the comments, and we’ll add them to this list.

Option #1: Hotspot Shield VPN

To me, this seems like the most paletable option, as I imagine it still counts on the video view count of ads. Using the Hotspot Shield effectively blocks your IP, and creates a Virtual Private Network for your online viewing experience. In other words, Viacom won’t know you’re not from the US. Using Hotspot shield, you should be able to view both ColbertNation.com and Hulu.com to watch full episodes free of the country restrictions.

To get the Hotspot Shield VPN for your computer, go here: HotspotShield.com

Option #2: BitTorrents

Ah, one of the most profane words on the Internet, at least by people who own the copyright on videos being torrented. These videos are often marginal quality, and from what I understand, take a very long time to download from the servers to your computer. Also, did I mention that big media companies with huge cadres of lawyers hate these things?

I’ve never used them, but from what I understand, they are an indispensable way to watch the ‘Colbert Report’ if you don’t have access to the show on TV or online. Torrents of the show tend to show up within a few hours of broadcast, and virtually every episode ever broadcast can be found if you do enough searching online. However, they generate no revenue for Stephen Colbert or Viacom, and are severely frowned upon by official parties.

That is why we cannot recommend downloading these Torrents, which can be found at sites such as mininova.com and Torrentz.com. While you can find how to download and view torrents all over the Internet, this is a very bad way to get your shows. Seriously, horrible. Don’t do it.

BUT I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING! WHAT CAN I DO?

Unfortunately, once these decisions are made, there’s not a lot more that can be done. However, here are a few addresses you may want to try.

FXUK

I couldn’t find a mailing address for FXUK for you to mail letters, but you can click on the link below to express your dissatisfaction with the decision to not renew the ‘Colbert Report’ broadcasting license.

Click here to e-mail FXUK

Comedy Central UK
E-mail Comedy Central UK and ask them to start carrying ‘The Colbert Report’.

Comedy Central UK
180 Oxford Street
London W1D 1DS

Tel. 020 7478 5300
Click here to e-mail Comedy Central UK

Also, if you’re going to talk about your unhappiness with the situation on Twitter, make sure to use this hashtag – #saveourcolbert – and know that you are not alone in your fight.

h/t ChicaLolita, Daniel D. and multiple other global fans of ‘The Colbert Report’ who simply want their favorite show back

• ‘Colbert Report’ Global Edition marathon – “Susan Boyle”
• ‘Colbert Report’ Global Edition marathon – “Colbert on the Ert”
• ‘Colbert Report’ Global Edition marathon – “Lenin’s Statue”
• ‘Colbert Report’ Global Edition marathon – “Spring Break”