How ready are we for next year’s digital-TV broadcasting? According to a report released by The Nielsen Company, over 13 million households are not prepared for this transition, and approximately 6 million households have at least one TV set that would become not functional after February 18, 2009, when the switch to digital-TV is set to take place.

“The change to all-digital broadcasting is the most significant change in the history of television, because unlike other advances such as color, older television sets will no longer be able to receive television signals without a converter,” Eric Rossi, Senior Manager, Product leadership and leader of Nielsen’s digital transition preparedness team said in a press release. “Over the past 18 months we have been reviewing every aspect of the digital transition to measure the impact and help clients understand where things stand as we all prepare for the challenges.”

The report found that 10.1% of all U.S. households would have no access to the digital-TV signals if the change occurred today, while 16.8% would have at least one TV set that wouldn’t work anymore. At the same time, New York is as ready as can get to be part of the transition, with just 3.5% of the TV sets caught off-guard, while Portland is the least prepared.

After breaking down the households by race, age and ethnicity, the report unveiled that Hispanic and Black viewers are the least prepared, while White and Asian ones are relatively better prepared. On the same note, people over the age of 55 are the least to be negatively affected by the transition to digital television.

The general transition to digital-TV broadcasting is scheduled to take place one year from now, and these types of reports are meant to raise awareness on the fact that there are still millions of people out there who will be caught unprepared unless they decide to get converter boxes or to subscribe to cable or satellite.