Comedy Central HD and Vertical Black Bars

[Riff Magnum]

Let me preface this by saying: I know why movies have black bars. Most of my favorite movies have horizontal black bars. Lots of my favorite oldies like Hitchcock, Pinocchio and stuff like that have vertical black bars. I'm fine with that. But why do some of the shows on comedy central like Jon Stewart, Colbert Report and Reno 911 continue to have the vertical black bars on the sides while shows like South Park are fullscreen. I just don't get the reasoning. It can't be "artistic intent" since shows like that will always look better in fullscreen or even widescreen aspect ratios, but horizontal black bars on modern shows/movies seems completely useless and outdated.