There are the obvious trends you’ll see when the fall TV season rolls around in September – the Rise of the Geeks (“Chuck,” “Reaper,” “The Big Bang Theory”) and the Foreign Menace Invades Hollywood (honestly, if Lou Dobbs is so concerned about foreigners taking our jobs, all he need do is plant himself in Hollywood, where our hard-working American actors are being told "Come back when you're more talented" and getting beat out for roles by scads of actors from England, South Africa, Denmark, Australia, etc.

(Some of the shows featuring foreign-born actors in lead roles: “Viva Laughlin,” “Aliens in America,” “Chuck,” “Bionic Woman,” “New Amsterdam,” “Moonlight,” “Pushing Daisies,” “Life,” & so on & so forth.).

But there’s another trend afoot, less obvious but more significant when it comes to how TV will be made in the future: The emerging reliance on online promotion on network programming, to the point of dictating what actually may get on the air. Given two shows, with all other things being equal, the show with the more compelling online component will get on the air; the other probably won’t. Of late, the success of “Heroes” and the resurrection of “Jericho” has given this notion greater urgency.

This notion was first floated at the January TV Press Tour, with this exchange with then-NBC chief Kevin Reilly:

QUESTION: Kevin, in the future will how you can promote shows online and develop audiences online --
will that actually affect the way that you develop series, and will it have an effect on what actually gets on the air?

KEVIN REILLY: “Yes. I mean, you can't have the cart pull the horse, you know. If you're doing something because you think it's a good Web show and not a good television show, that's going to be a problem. But the -- our Web folks have a seat at the adults' table. They're not locked away in the back room.

“It is a daily conversation about how can we exploit, how can we further market, push the tentacles of exposure out in the public? How can we change our distribution methods to best benefit the shows, the product, the company? How can we make all of the above an asset for the company? How do we make money on all the above? It's an exciting but trying time. There are moving parts on every front. …

“You're going to see all sorts of experimentation, and we already have. So yes, and any -- the second we pick something up, even as we do it, we say, "Oh, this one" -- we're starting dialogue right now with our sales department to figure out some innovative ways to integrate and work with advertisers in a special way. We're talking to our Web people right now -- what are the Web extensions of this? What's the opportunity? – and identifying the ones that can really be the leaders, like "Heroes" was last year. We know almost at this time last year that "Heroes" was going to be a big Web play for us. And Tim Kring was completely embracing it. That's one of the reasons there's been so much success there.

Your Mayor was getting around to doing a story on this when three things happened:

* Kevin Reilly was too immersed in May upfronts to pursue the conversation further.
* Kevin Reilly got canned at NBC (he’s now at Fox).
* The computer with all the interviews previously conducted on the story went into a deep, Terry-Schiavo-type coma (and hasn’t yet been taken to a data retrieval service).

Seems like each network has a different strategy for doing this, but it’s clearly on their minds:

* NBC is continuing the sci-fi/fantasy theme (with “Bionic Woman,” “Chuck” and “Journeyman”), knowing fans of the genre have nothing better to do than troll the Internets all day long and these sorts of shows lend themselves to such online applications.

* CBS is trotting out some controversial or at least provocative programming (“Kid Nation,” “Viva Laughlin” (sort of) and the midseason show “Swingtown”) intended to stir online debate on message boards.

CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler explained her thinking and strategy:

“It's one thing when you've got an audience communicating to someone at the network. But (with “Jericho”) you really had a chance to see the way they talked to each other, the way they communicated about characters, the way they talked about storylines. That gives you a very unique opportunity right now. So I think we are looking at a shift and a change. …

“Maybe it comes out of "Jericho." What I think is so amazing is being able to listen and learn and watch our audience really connect with a show and really talk to each other, and I think what I'm hoping from "Kid Nation," from some of the shows, from "Swingtown," you're finding that audiences are personalizing, they've got very strong opinions, and we at the network are, we're really listening. We're responding, and I think that -- it's that debate, and that public discussion is positive, and it allows us to gain greater insight into who is watching our shows and what do they have to say about our shows. So I'm finding that personally very, very rewarding.”

* The CW is keying into the blogging plot point in its new show “Gossip Girl” to invite fans to come to their site and start their own (as well as buy the crap that they wear and use on the show).

So, it’s a story that bears following, and one that we will indeed revisit later, if the Daily News ponies up to resuscitate my old computer.