Sheri Herman, 71, formerly of Philadelphia, pioneering internet and cable TV executive, former senior vice president of content and business development for E! Entertainment Television, former president of internet startup American Cybercast, founder of SLH Communications, tech prophet, and dancer, died Thursday, Aug. 6, of heart failure at her home in Telogia, Fla., about 35 miles west of Tallahassee.
A magna cum laude communications graduate at Temple University, Ms. Herman went to New York after college to produce commercials for an ad agency. Over the next 27 years, she relocated to Denver and Los Angeles, successfully marketed, programmed, and developed dozens of TV networks and online companies, and pioneered the integration of TV and the emerging internet.
She was “mesmerized” by Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, her sister, Nadine, said, and predicted in the 1970s that one personal device would eventually take pictures, send messages, stream content, and still make phone calls. Jarl Mohn, former president and chief executive officer at E!, called Ms. Herman “a pioneer in incorporating new technologies and branding in entertainment.”
He said: “She also brought passion and conviction to everything she worked on.”
Ms. Herman helped turn the startup Movietime channel into E! Entertainment Television in 1990 and told the Los Angeles Times: “We’re going to totally reposition the network. You won’t recognize us.” Over the next few years, E! grew its subscriber base from two million to 55 million, and Ms. Herman won industry awards for her marketing campaigns.
At American Cybercast, she championed The Spot, a groundbreaking interactive online reality show, in 1995, and told the Los Angeles Times in 1996: “We’re creating a new medium, but we’re kind of a cross between publishing and broadcasting in that we’re going to be advertising driven. If we were a movie studio, we’d be Miramax with a little more edge.”
Russell Collins, founder of American Cybercast, said: “Sheri Herman was nothing if not fearless. Her determination was boundless and fierce.”
Ms. Herman was especially effective at fundraising for projects and combining online content with ads and product placement. She trailblazed new internet publishing formats that included text, photos, and videos, and predicted the collision of TV and internet content. In 1996, she told Variety: “Eyeballs will move from TV to PC.”
As director of programming for the United Cable Television Corp. in the mid-1980s, Ms. Herman collaborated with dozens of networks and oversaw the development of the Discovery Channel, the Fashion Channel, QVC, and other networks.
As senior vice president of programming and production for the Access Entertainment Network in the late 1990s, she reintroduced popular music videos and, according to Variety in 1998, gained six million subscribers in the network’s first three months of existence.
She founded her own firm, SLH Communications, in 1999 and contracted with TV Guide, Barnes & Noble, Hilton Hotels, musicians Quincy Jones and Jon Bon Jovi, and other entertainers and businesses. In New York, in the 1980s, she worked with cosmetics mogul Estée Lauder.
Temple officials noted her “influential career” in a tribute, and longtime friend and colleague Martin Lewis said: “She had a relentless thirst for charting new paths forward. She proselytized new media, new approaches, new everything.”
In 2007, Ms. Herman reduced her daily responsibilities after being seriously injured in an auto accident in California. She moved to Florida in 2021.
Lewis said: “She was inventive, creative, exhilarating.”
Sheri Lynn Herman was born May 21, 1955, in Philadelphia. She grew up in Overbrook Park with her parents and older sister, and graduated from Philadelphia High School for Girls.
Her family featured several singers, and she spent many holidays singing songs and playing guitar around the piano at her grandparents’ home in Wynnefield. She loved music, studied ballet when she was young, and performed later with the Janosik Polish Dance Ensemble.
Stylish and social, Ms. Herman enjoyed traveling and entertaining. She was a skilled seamstress who made her own clothes, an accomplished chef, and adept at interior decorating. She doted on her cats and dogs.
She married and divorced twice, and, after Philadelphia, lived in New York, Denver, and Los Angeles before Florida. Her sister said: “She was brilliant.”
In addition to her sister, Ms. Herman is survived by other relatives.
A celebration of her life is to be held later. Family, friends, and colleagues can connect at www.SheriHerman.com.
Donations in her name may be made to the Temple University Klein College Recruitment Fund, Annenberg Hall, 2020 N. 13th St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19122.
