OK, so after talking to a Blogging New Orleans sibling, Engadget HD, I found out a was a bit off base in my earlier Where's High Def NBC and WDSU TV? post. First up, the post should have been Where's High Def WDSU on Cox Cable? instead. It seems that I have fallen for the hype of HD via cable or satelite and sans HDTV myself (hey where the heck am I getting a thousand bucks for a TV) I didn't realize most HD stations are found over the air too. The confusion comes from various commercials extolling the qualities of HD via Cox, Charter, DirectTV, etc and not to many talking about HD via antenna. A little Google searching will inform you that many of the locals have OTA (over the air) HD, ABC26 even has a page telling you the channels to look for. (CW38 HD page, NOLA.com article on HD, HDTV Broadcast Market map of New Orleans) Still, laziness is no excuse, so I'll take credit for a knee jerk post... Here is the real argument (as deduced by EngadgetHD expert Richard Lawler):

"cox (and the other cable co's where there are disputes) is arguing that the HD signal is broadcast free OTA just like the SD feed, why should they have to pay to rebroadcast it over cable when they don't for SD, and can't (or just don't, I don't know for sure) charge their customers extra for it. The local company however, had to spend money to upgrade to HD and wants the cable company to kick in, so they're at odds."

So the problem is, WDSU wants to get paid for upgrading and Cox doesn't want to pay to much for it, although they are charging their customers extra just to get HD on top of regular service... er make that on top of digital cable which they charge their customers extra just to have on top of regular service. So greed all around... though that antenna thing sounds pretty good.

More Info from EngadgetHD:

EngadgetHD HD antenna help, How to get HDTV Over The Air broadcasts, HDTV Google Maps mashup