Winter TV Press Tour 2009 starts in 10 days. The four Genuine Broadcast Networks will get four days to make their case as to why we should continue to treat them as something special despite their shrinking audience and increasingly cable-like approach to programming.

Last spring, Fox, the hottest chick at the party, landed J.J. Abrams — the hottest date — for the new TV season.

Fox had bought a J.J. spec script for a drama series called “Fringe.” “Fringe” would be the series with which Fox finally broke out of its whole Tread Water Until “American Idol” Launches rut. Fox would become a major player in the fourth quarter.

It was not the love match they’d hoped for. And now Fox heads into Winter TV Press Tour 2009 in fourth place among broadcast networks and will once again fling itself at its old flame, “American Idol,” in hopes the singing competition will put it back on top.

Abrams described “Fringe” as a “nod to ‘Altered States’ and ‘Scanners’ and that whole Michael Crichton/Robin Cook world of medicine and science” with a “slight ‘Twilight Zone’ vibe.”

Loosely translated, J.J. was saying the show is about a hot blond FBI agent who rescues a crazy genius research scientist from a mental institution so that he and his estranged son can help her solve paranormal mysteries.

Fox had already managed, for the first time in its history, to win the 2007-08 TV season, thanks to “American Idol,” even though the singing competition took a ratings hit last season. Fox also finished first, for only the second time in its 21-year history, among 18- to 49-year-olds whom ad execs lust after — so much so they will pay a premium to a network that can deliver them to their ads. But the network always struggled, to varying degrees, in the fall. At Fox, the action started in January, when “Idol” returned.

Fox spared no expense on the launch of “Fringe.” Two dozen cows were herded through Manhattan streets along with people handing out “Fringe” graft (a cow has a starring role in the show). An eczema of “Fringe” billboards erupted all across the country. You could hardly watch Fox’s broadcast of the baseball All-Star Game for all the “Fringe” logos pasted across the screen. The network even announced “Fringe” viewers would be subjected to fewer ads than usual — Remote-Free TV, the network called it — to enhance their viewing pleasure.

The press gobbled it up by the shovelful. Before its unveiling, adoring TV critics asked J.J. at a news conference how it felt to have the show that was going to “save the fall” television season.

“Any pressure or expectations for this, or any other show, could ruin a show,” J.J. proclaimed.

But so confident were Fox execs that “Fringe” was the Next Big Thing, they went ahead and launched it at 8 o’clock on a Tuesday — two weeks before the official start of the TV season and without the benefit of a strong lead-in show to feed its viewers.

The honeymoon ended that night. Only 9.1 million people tuned in to see that $10 million first episode. That’s nearly 9 million fewer viewers than had watched the launch of J.J.’s biggest TV success, “Lost,” back in the fall of ’04.

Even after “Fringe” moved to its regular 9 p.m. Tuesday time slot, with the benefit of “House” lead-in audiences, it never really took off. To date it is only the country’s 33rd most watched show, averaging 9.9 million viewers. Among those coveted 18- to 49-year-olds, “Fringe” is the season’s No. 15-ranked series — a ranking it shares with David Caruso of “CSI: Miami.” In fairness, it is the most successful new show in that age bracket, though this speaks more to how badly most new shows are doing.

Once again, Fox doggy-paddled back to the lifeboat that is “American Idol.”

The singing competition is, for understandable reasons, not the ratings stud it once was. It’s going into its eighth season — which in reality-TV years is nearly as old as Jay Leno.

Even so, Fox execs are clearly concerned about the show’s drop last season. Preparing for this latest “Idol” edition, they’ve aggressively tinkered with the show.

They’ve added a fourth judge — pop songwriter-producer Kara DioGuardi — in hopes she will ratchet up the Paula crazy and add some new jargon for the judges to pull out of their Bag o’ Comments, which last season were mostly limited to “You’re in the dawg house!” “You sound like a cruise ship karaoke singer” and “You made it your own.”