Rather cleverly, the social engineers have decided that the pain will come in two stages. First comes the pin-prick; in the early hours of this morning (Wednesday), someone will have deliberately turned off Whitehaven's access to BBC Two. This is an assault that many will be able to endure. But in four weeks' time, all the analogue TV channels will disappear in the dead of night.
The idea of analogue switch-off, or as government spin-doctors prefer to refer to it, 'digital switchover', has been around for so long that it is deeply shocking that something is actually happening.
But now the government is pulling the plug on the people's telly unless they go out and buy new equipment, a process that will continue until the end of 2012. Almost everyone will be affected in some way, especially as many people will need to buy converters for all those second and third TV sets.
Not even Gordon Brown will be able to avoid an election during that time and there could be a lot of very angry people as a result. The last politician who tried to mess with the television was Ted Heath during the three-day week; then, the screens went blank only after 10.30 in the evening, but it no doubt contributed to the eventual downfall of his government.
Dipping into the BBC licence for about 拢600m to help convert the old and poor also means that there are many programmes that no one will ever get to see, whatever the state of their digital screens.
The voluntary move to digital, at least on one TV in the home, has gone so much more quickly and painlessly than anyone expected. The last compulsory stage and the impact on all those other millions of analogue TV sets and video recorders could yet cause considerable consternation.
But Whitehaven day is a good moment to take a snapshot of the current state of TV in the UK.
All the base numbers were helpfully set out at last week's Mediatel Future of Television conference.
The UK now leads the world with 21.4m digital TV households - 9.1m of them Freeview, 8.6m Sky and the rest cable.
By the end of next year, digital penetration is forecast by ABN AMRO to reach a remarkable 94% on at least one set with Freeview the big winner from the switchover. It should end up with 13.7m homes in five years' time, creating a more significant platform for advertisers.
Commercial TV revenue will start shrinking this year before resuming growth in 2008 and continuing to grow by between 1% and 2% a year until 2012.
However, two anomalies stand out: the low levels of high-definition penetration and, to a lesser extent, personal video recorders.
There are 2.4m HD-ready sets out there in the UK, but only 450,000 subscribers. Neither Ofcom nor the government seems interested in making HD available for Freeview.
The progress of PVRs in the UK has been steady, but there is a long way to go if current forecasts are to be met, with Jupiter Research predicting 34% PVR penetration by 2012.
But at least some of the people of Whitehaven might find all the worry about the state of HD television and PVRs more than a little precious. They are the people who are about to lose their five-channel analogue TV, courtesy of Gordon Brown and chums.
30 SECONDS ON ... WHITEHAVEN
- Whitehaven, originally a fishing hamlet on the Cumbrian coast, developed into a major coal-exporting port in the 17th century after being acquired by the Lowther family.
- A booming ship-building industry further transformed the town - which was named by Viking settlers - and led to its involvement in the slave trade.
- On 15 August 1947, 104 miners were killed in the William Pit Disaster, one of many accidents over the years. Local industries gradually declined as the port struggled to cope with the increasing size of merchant ships.
- Mildred Washington, the grandmother of the first US president, is buried in a local cemetery, while the poet William Wordsworth was a regular visitor.
- The local coastline is one of the best places in the world to observe 40-tonne basking sharks.