Networks’ Nervous Foray Online

Summer in Southern California means sun, surf and a chance for television journalists from around the country to question the big networks — and some bigger Hollywood stars — about the fall prime-time lineup.

That was the job at hand last week — mingling with the starlets, critiquing new show characters and even picking up some inside juice on where some of the story lines are headed this season.

So what, you ask, does this have to do with the Internet?

Well, each network is working feverishly to figure out how to make money off this crazy Internet thing, how to reach potential viewers and how to give them what they want — pretty much: everything, all the time — without destroying long-standing business models that have supported the industry for decades.