Sheri Herman, the cable executive involved in the launches of E! Entertainment television, the Fashion Channel and American Cybercast, has died. Herman suffered heart failure in her sleep in Florida on August 6th, her family announced. She was 71.
After graduating magna cum laude from Temple University, Herman got a job as a TV commercials producer at AC&R in New York.
In 1983, following a period in the marketing department of The Entertainment Channel, she was recruited to join multi-system operator United Cable in Denver as Director of Programming. While there, Herman was responsible for negotiating carriage agreements with many of the cable networks launching in the mid-’80s gold rush.
United Cable eventually merged with TCI, which was run by media titan John Malone. The resulting company became known as Liberty Media, and while there Herman’s role expanded to evaluating investments in new cable networks. She also oversaw existing commitments with the Discovery Channel, QVC and the Fashion Channel. She helped save the Discovery Channel from bankruptcy by negotiating 30-plus output deals resulting in millions of dollars of new funding. She also convinced 20 cable TV operators to take equity positions in QVC over a 60-day period.
“Sheri was a true creative force. She not only could spot great creative talent to engage with us at E! she was wildly creative herself,” said Masters, now President Emeritus of NPR, who later became known as Jarl Mohn. “She also brought passion and conviction to everything she worked on. Indifference was not in her tool kit. That was underscored by her remarkable subsequent achievements as a pioneer in incorporating new technologies and branding in entertainment.”
In 1993, Herman joined boutique L.A. advertising agency Fattal & Collins. She was brought in to leverage her longstanding personal relationship with telecommunications giant US West who wanted to launch a new interactive TV channel.
In 1996, Herman was asked to bring in capital to support a sort of Melrose Place for the web titled The Spot. Launched by Fattal & Collins-affiliated filmmaker Scott Zakarin in 1995, it was one of the most notable of the first-wave Web shows.
Herman raised over $7 million in financing from Intel, TCI, Softbank and others, and that success spawned a new online network called American Cybercast. With Herman as president, he company financed four different episodic digital shows that were viewable on the then nascent world-wide-web, including The Spot.
Zakarin soon left the company, and Herman and agency owner Russell Collins carried on. With The Spot, Herman incorporated paid product placements, advertiser brands and sponsored hyperlink ties directly into the characters’ daily digital journals.
“Sheri Herman was nothing if not fearless. American Cybercast had a steep hill to climb from the popular excitement around ‘The Spot,’ its premiere show, to a company structure with close to a hundred employees and $10 million in funding,” said Collins in a statement. “Her determination was boundless and fierce, and this is how I will always remember her… sitting at a table with representatives from some of the largest and most recognizable tech and entertainment companies in the world who had invested in us and pulling them all along with assurance and calmness and her characteristic magnetic charm.”
The Spot continued production through mid-1997, when American Cybercast fell into bankruptcy.
Later that year, Herman became Senior Vice President of Programming & Production of Access Entertainment Network (AEN), a company that traded graveyard hours of cable TV airtime to infomercial companies.
In the wake of MTV and VH1 abandoning their original core mission of playing music videos Herman saw the a space to meet the needs of both record companies and music fans. With financial support from all the major record labels, AEN began devoting major blocks of program time to music videos and related content with interactive links enabling consumer purchase. Among the participating brands were Best Buy, Borders and Spin Magazine.
In the late 1990s, she was lured back to E! as Senior Vice President of Content & Business Development.
Herman later formed her own consultancy, SLH Communications, offering her expertise in marketing, programming and business development in both traditional and new media.
