Howard Stern's soon-to-be ex-radio station, K-ROCK in New York, is suddenly finding new outlets to bring music to its listeners, starting with the web.

Key quote:

"K-Rock is always looking for opportunities to further connect with our listeners," said Rob Cross, Operations Manager of the station.

"Enhancing our playlist, while simultaneously launching a web stream whose
sole purpose is to feature breaking music, enables us to serve a wider
audience with the music most frequently requested without changing the
fabric of the radio station."

It may be worth noting that they didn't try this type of listener outreach until after the ink dried on Howard Stern's contract with Sirius Satellite Radio and satellite began drawing away listeners by the millions.

MORE: The Times is noticing, too.

STILL MORE: Michele tackles K-Rock's formatting changes as only she can:

It must suck to be in the radio business these days. I imagine it's hard to come up with a format that will keep listeners from moving over to satellite. However, if in the case of KRock, the listeners are getting satellite just to listen to Stern, a format change like this one (and stop calling it a tweak or a fabric change, it's much larger than that and we're not stupid) might the key to getting them to turn back to your station at 10am. I'm still inclined, however, to believe this is about way more than post-Stern ratings worries and more about figuring out what the people want.

It all seemed so simple when Andy Travis programmed WKRP in Cincinnati.