Lee Abrams (born 1952) is an American media executive who has held a number of posts for large and influential companies, and is generally credited with developing the Album Oriented Rock format first heard at WQDR Raleigh and thereafter employed by hundreds of radio stations across the country, as well as co-founding XM Satellite Radio.
He modified the album-oriented rock music format, or AOR, from a looser, freeform style to a tighter form, using playlists rather than allowing DJs the freedom to play anything they chose from albums.
Some of his other work at this time included numerous voice-overs, notably the introduction commentary in "Let's Talk About Me" from the 1984 Alan Parsons Project album Vulture Culture.
Abrams co-founded XM Satellite Radio and served as Chief Programming Officer at that company until his departure in 2008.
[3] On October 19, 2010, Forbes reporter Jeff Bercovici published an email from Abrams defending himself, including some specifics not included in mainstream coverage, notably, that the video was from parody site The Onion and that it had been previously shown at a Chicago Tribune sales meeting to a positive reaction.