Feb. 17, 2009, is television's T-Day when all American television sets must transition from analog to digital delivery, whether ready or not.

Most of America is ready, with recent surveys insisting 90 percent of TV homes are at least aware of what one station bills as The Big Switch. But that nagging 10 percent is causing concern as it represents five risk categories where TV is not a luxury but a lifeline: The elderly, limited income families, Hispanic households, rural families and the disabled.

As TVNewsday Editor Harry Jessell put it during a Promax late afternoon symposium he moderated Wednesday, "It's a daunting task. Even if we get 90 percent reached, that 10 percent could represent a real mess. We're talking nearly two million homes and five million people who get up on Feb. 18 with no TV."

Jessell's group joined a half-day of panels gathered to discuss the pluses and minuses underscoring the digital transition, including "Strategies for Marketing to At-Risk Audiences" and the creative and strategic tools needed to meet the National Association of Broadcasters' goal of 100 percent awareness for every single TV home.

Public Broadcasting viewers already include all of those five risk groups, according to Kelly Chmielewski, PBS director of broadcast management. PBS researchers decided to learn more about people who rely solely on over-the-air reception. What they discovered is OTA audiences, generally speaking, despite income or locale, choose to watch TV this way, and hope to do so after next February.

This surprising discovery sent PBS in another direction, to leverage the trust people placed in PBS while still educating recalcitrant viewers to the fact that this change—whether they approved of it or not—was coming. Their marketing solution: using This Old House on-air talents to encourage the switch to DTV as the "ultimate do-it-yourself project for 2008."

Said Chmielewski: "Our goal is to bridge the gap between awareness and understanding, then compel people to take action." To that end, she offered the audience "the best-kept secret in this endeavor: the FCC toll-free hotline number [888-CALL-FCC] where you actually reach a live person."

Sadly, for the elderly, especially the elderly on a fixed income, even if they want digital television, many cannot afford to buy the set-top boxes needed and scammers have already devised schemes to bilk them in the process.

"For many people, TV is their only link to the outside world and they are at risk for finding nothing on their sets come February," noted Kevin Donnellan, AARP's chief communications officer. A sizable chunk of seniors live on incomes under $30,000, he added. "For an elderly woman living on a fixed income, $40 for a converter box is a lot."

Without immediate outreach to the elderly and homebound, scammers will fill the gap. "We're already seeing counterfit coupons, false help offers, overcharging for new televisions, counterfeit converter boxes," he noted. "And most of these scams also involve attempts to get at their Social Security number or credit card."

The AARP is reaching out to its targeted populations with information they will need to make cost-effective transition decisions. Indeed, its magazine is sent to nearly 40 million members. AARP outreach also includes radio shows, educational outreach, holding regular congressional meetings, visiting every state office, and in an innovative move, working with Meals-On-Wheels and Visiting Nurses as a way to get digital transition information to the home-bound via persons they trust. "Lots of these people do not respond to mailings," Donnellan added.

For Hispanic households, using local grassroots outreach is essential, especially since Internet use was unlikely, according to Ellen Politi, director of affiliate marketing, Telemundo Network. Noting that more than 40 percent of Hispanic homes are completely or partially unready, Politi stressed using NAB's national roadshow, town hall events, radio partnerships, local retailers and supermarkets, even the Mexican consulate when handy (He showed up in Phoenix to push DTV.)

"For us, the most important way is one-on-one," Politi concluded.

The final panel, "Marketing the Madness," was pure PUSH. Peter Martin, president of the agency NAB is using, United Front Media, ran a few of the six new spots local broadcasters will be airing showing the carrot and the stick approached: One, "The Future is Here," touted all the many benefits digital transmission has over analog. The latter, "It's Just a Box," humorously showed what will happen to TV sets made useless (i.e., fish tanks, flower pot). A new slogan also will debut: "Make sure your TV is DTV."

By the holidays, there will be a comical Santa spot (wrongly still giving people analog-sets) and a 100-day count-down.

Ann Adkins, marketing manager for Raycom Media, is not waiting. Indeed, this mid- to small-market station group mounted its The Big Switch campaign in April, 2006. "We wanted to be the first." Since then, Raycom stations have aired 41,000 Big Switch promos, given 274 speeches, broadcast 1,000 news stories and run 6,000 news crawls. She also announced that Raycom will begin its own soft shut-off test "in a couple of weeks."

Another key point made by this panel, which also included Lauren Sullivan of PBS's WHYY Philadelphia: Cable and satellite have "brilliantly" taken advantage of all the confusion to push buying a pay service and eliminate the need to do anything. But, Martin added, "You'll be asking people to pay a lot more for something that is free."