Re: More on Tribune's Lee Abrams (2)

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: Rock 'n' roll never forgets, and neither does Lee Abrams, especially when it comes to lessons rock taught him. : "There was always music, but in the 1950s, rock 'n' roll came along with a whole new attitude of innovation, rule-breaking, vision, spirit and soul," Abrams said Tuesday, shortly after it was announced the influential radio exec was leaving XM Satellite Radio for the new position of chief innovation officer at Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, WGN-Ch. 9, WGN-AM 720 and other U.S. print and broadcast outlets. : "News and information is kind of where music was in the '50s," he said. "It's always been there, always been a part of our lives, but there's an opportunity to be the next Beatles and Dylan, just taking it to the next level. ... It's part of the fabric of our culture and it's terrible to see it dumbed down, not at Tribune, but generally. We have an opportunity to really help make people smarter in a non-elitist way." : Abrams, 55, gave Howard Stern and Steve Dahl their first major market radio jobs and he is widely credited with creating FM's album rock format, though some also see him as leading the push toward consultant-driven playlists. : At Tribune Co. he will be responsible for getting everyone to play a new tune across Tribune's interactive, broadcasting and publishing properties. His first day will be April 1 and he plans to relocate to Chicago, his hometown. : "He's a genius, and the person who encouraged me to become the radio personality I knew I could become," said Dahl, WJMK-FM 104.3's morning man and an occasional Chicago Tribune columnist, who was first hired by Abrams in the mid-1970s in Detroit and later hired by Abrams at Chicago's WLUP-FM 97.9. : "A lot of guys would go, 'Make them play five records an hour, shut them up, they're going over the line,' and our attitude was, 'No, keep going!'" Abrams said. : Dubbed by Washington Post.com "the creative heart and soul" of XM as chief creative officer since its founding in 1998, Abrams was a founding partner of Burkhart/Abrams consultants and has advised MTV, Rolling Stone and Coca-Cola. : Randy Michaels, Tribune's chief executive of broadcasting and interactive, called Abrams "the most formidable creative thinker in the media business" in a statement and said Abrams will "pump new life into our content, re-energize our brands, and get people thinking and working together like they never have." : To Abrams, newspapers are where radio was in the '50s, before rock changed everything. : "Everybody was writing its obituary because here comes TV," he said. "But then radio went into a golden age because of the guys who invented Top 40 radio, which threw out the rule book. Suddenly radio wasn't just cool again, it was bigger than ever. : "I don't know what the Top 40 answer is for newspapers, but people are writing them off because of the Internet and saying their golden age is behind them, and there just might be -- not to cheapen it -- that Top 40 kind of idea to reignite it."

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