Questions about delivering 16x9 TV spots to stations that can't broadcast an alternate 4x3 version

I'm sorry if this is not the correct forum for such a question--please move if necessary:

How do you folks deal with TV stations (think super-small markets) that broadcast in both HD and SD, but can only handle a single version of a spot? I have a 16x9 finished spot. If I deliver an HD version, it will get center-cut on their SD feeds. If I letterbox it and send it as a 4x3 spot, it will get stretched on their HD feed.

So, I can either have my entire image on screen, but it might get stretched (think 4x3 image on 16x9 tv), or I might have a center-cut version of my spot (16x9 center cut to fit on 4x3 screen) that has correct proportions. Neither is a perfect solution, and from what the stations tell me, they can't (or won't spend the money to upgrade their systems) take a native 16x9 version for their HD feed and an alternate 4x3 version for their SD feed and broadcast each version when appropriate, ensuring that aspect is preserved, and my entire image is shown. We've got to choose which we prefer, and we're screwed either way.

I'd rather not shoot everything in 16x9 with center-cut in mind, because the spot then looks ridiculous when viewed in HD (tons of space on either side). Neither of the stations we're dealing with can give us viewership numbers in terms of HD vs. SD, but they do tell us that there are significant numbers of viewers on both HD and SD, so we can't ignore the other one.

I know that there have to be some others out there that are experiencing the same issue. I'd love to hear what you're doing to mitigate this.

Centre cut is the solution, no matter how sad that is. You need to keep your aspect correct. Some stations accept 14:9, but many 16:9 stations who have an analogue output make it a requirement to keep everything critical within 4:3. We've been doing it that way here in Australia for, I dunno, maybe 9 or 10 years.