Sheri Herman, 71, previously of Philadelphia, pioneering internet and cable TV government, former senior vp of content material and enterprise growth for E! Entertainment Television, former president of internet startup American Cybercast, founding father of SLH Communications, tech prophet, and dancer, died Thursday, Aug. 6, of coronary heart failure at her dwelling 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 school to provide commercials for an advert company. Over the following 27 years, she relocated to Denver and Los Angeles, efficiently marketed, programmed, and developed dozens of TV networks and on-line corporations, and pioneered the mixing of TV and the rising internet.
She was “mesmerized” by Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, her sister, Nadine, mentioned, and predicted within the Seventies that one private machine would ultimately take photos, ship messages, stream content material, and nonetheless make cellphone calls. Jarl Mohn, former president and chief government officer at E!, referred to as Ms. Herman “a pioneer in incorporating new technologies and branding in entertainment.”
He mentioned: “She also brought passion and conviction to everything she worked on.”
Ms. Herman helped flip the startup Movietime channel into E! Entertainment Television in 1990 and advised the Los Angeles Times: “We’re going to totally reposition the network. You won’t recognize us.” Over the following few years, E! grew its subscriber base from two million to 55 million, and Ms. Herman gained trade awards for her advertising campaigns.
At American Cybercast, she championed The Spot, a groundbreaking interactive on-line actuality present, in 1995, and advised 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.”
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Russell Collins, founding father of American Cybercast, mentioned: “Sheri Herman was nothing if not fearless. Her determination was boundless and fierce.”
Ms. Herman was particularly efficient at fundraising for tasks and combining on-line content material with adverts and product placement. She trailblazed new internet publishing codecs that included textual content, pictures, and movies, and predicted the collision of TV and internet content material. In 1996, she advised Variety: “Eyeballs will move from TV to PC.”
As director of programming for the United Cable Television Corp. within the mid-Nineteen Eighties, Ms. Herman collaborated with dozens of networks and oversaw the event of the Discovery Channel, the Fashion Channel, QVC, and different networks.
As senior vp of programming and manufacturing for the Access Entertainment Network within the late-Nineteen Nineties, she reintroduced fashionable music movies and, according to Variety in 1998, gained six million subscribers within the community’s first three months of existence.
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She based her personal agency, SLH Communications, in 1999 and contracted with TV Guide, Barnes & Noble, Hilton Hotels, musicians Quincy Jones and Jon Bon Jovi, and different entertainers and companies. In New York, within the Nineteen Eighties, she labored with cosmetics mogul Estée Lauder.
Temple officers famous her “influential career” in a tribute, and longtime pal and colleague Martin Lewis mentioned: “She had a relentless thirst for charting new paths forward. She proselytized new media, new approaches, new everything.”
In 2007, Ms. Herman decreased her day by day tasks after being severely injured in an auto accident in California. She moved to Florida in 2021.
Lewis mentioned: “She was inventive, creative, exhilarating.”
Sheri Lynn Herman was born May 21, 1955, in Philadelphia. She grew up in Overbrook Park together with her mother and father and older sister, and graduated from Philadelphia High School for Girls.
Her household featured a number of singers, and she spent many holidays singing songs and taking part in guitar across the piano at her grandparents’ dwelling in Wynnefield. She beloved music, studied ballet when she was younger, and carried out later with the Janosik Polish Dance Ensemble.
Stylish and social, Ms. Herman loved touring and entertaining. She was a talented seamstress who made her personal garments, an achieved chef, and adept at inside adorning. She doted on her cats and canines.
She married and divorced twice, and, after Philadelphia, lived in New York, Denver, and Los Angeles earlier than Florida. Her sister mentioned: (*71*)
In addition to her sister, Ms. Herman is survived by different family members.
A celebration of her life is to be held later. Family, buddies, and colleagues can join at www.SheriHerman.com.
Donations in her title could also be made to the Temple University Klein College Recruitment Fund, Annenberg Hall, 2020 N. thirteenth St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19122.