Sheri Herman, Former Executive at E! and American Cybercast, Dies at 71

Sheri Herman, the visionary marketing and programming executive who helped launch E! Entertainment Television and served as president of American Cybercast, home of the first interactive, episodic online TV show, has died. She was 71.

Herman died Aug. 6 of heart failure at her home in Telogia, Florida, her longtime friend Martin Lewis, a marketing strategist and humorist, announced. The two worked together often over the years.

“Sheri Herman was a remarkable, vibrant spirit,” he said. “She had a relentless thirst for charting new paths forward. She was never satisfied with the status quo. She was inventive, creative, exhilarating. She proselytized new media, new approaches, new everything. In person she was vivacious and generous to those of us who were fortunate enough to enter her circle. She was truly adored.”

In 1988, Herman joined Los Angeles-based cable channel Movietime, a start-up that ran film trailers 24/7, as senior vp marketing. After Jarl Mohn, the former VH1 president then known as Lee Masters, came aboard the following year, she helped remake the channel into E!

Herman was responsible for all aspects of brand development, marketing, publicity, promotion and sponsorships as E! grew its subscriber base from 2 million to 55 million during her tenure.

“She not only could spot great creative talent to engage with us at E!, she was wildly creative herself,” Mohn said. “She also brought passion and conviction to everything she worked on. Indifference was not in her tool kit.”

In 1993, Herman joined the boutique L.A. advertising agency Fattal & Collins, hired to leverage her relationship with telecommunications giant US West, which was lookin to launch an interactive TV channel. Agency owner Russell Collins then decide to create a company called American Cybercast, with Herman as president.

At American Cybercast, she spearheaded the launch of four episodic digital shows viewable on the then-nascent World Wide Web in the days of dial-up, raising more than $7 million in financing from Intel, Tele-Communications Inc., Softbank and others.

Herman was the driving force behind the first web soap opera, The Spot, which launched in 1995. She conceived the incorporation of paid product placements, advertiser brands and sponsored hyperlinks directly into the characters’ daily digital journals.

“Sheri Herman was nothing if not fearless,” Collins said. “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.

“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.”

Soon afterward, she publicly predicted that “eyeballs will move from TV to PC.”


In 2007, she was the victim of a hit-and-run car accident that caused her to reluctantly end her career at age 52.

Sheri Lynn Herman was born in Philadelphia on May 21, 1955. Her mother, Leatrice, was a classical singer and her father, Bernard, a senior textile technician for the Botany 500 clothing brand. 

She attended the Philadelphia High School for Girls and Temple University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications, graduating magna cum laude. She also studied dance and was a member of the Janosik Polish folk dance company.

Herman began her career with the help of fellow Philadelphian Lee Tredanari, who in the 1960s had directed TV commercials for presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He introduced her to Alvin Chereskin and Stephen Jay Rose, heads of the New York boutique advertising agency AC&R, and was hired on the spot in 1980.

She produced TV commercials there and one of the firm’s top clients, cosmetics mogul Estée Lauder, became a mentor.  

Following a stint in marketing at the Entertainment Channel, she was recruited in 1983 to join United Cable in Denver as director of programming. She negotiated carriage agreements between the multisystem operator and many of the cable networks launching in the wake of industry deregulation triggered by the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984.

In that capacity, she worked with networks including the Disney Channel, the Discovery Channel, A&E, Lifetime, ESPN, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, TNN and the Home Shopping Network.

After the John Malone-led TCI gained control of United Cable, she evaluated new cable networks for funding by United and TCI and oversaw existing investments in Discovery, QVC and the Fashion Channel. She was credited with helping save Discovery from bankruptcy by negotiating more than 30 new output deals, resulting in millions of dollars of new funding.

Following her stints at E! and American Cybercast, she became senior vp programming & production at Access Entertainment Network, which traded graveyard hours of cable TV airtime to infomercial companies but was seeking a fresh business model.

With MTV and VH1 cutting back on playing music videos, Herman transitioned AEN into incorporating major blocks of program time to present music videos and related content with interactive links enabling consumer purchase. She secured financing and support from major record labels and established programs synergized with such brands as Best Buy, Borders and Spin magazine.

In 2009, new challenges from YouTube prompted music heavyweights Sony, Universal and EMI to collaborate in Vevo. Herman’s 1997 business model for AEN laid the structural blueprint for that.

After a return to E! in the late 1990s, she launched her own consultancy, SLH Communications, offering expertise in marketing, programming and business development to clients including Quincy Jones, TV Guide, Barnes & Noble, House of Blues, Hilton Hotels, the CBC, The Family Channel, Jon Bon Jovi, The Bangles, Erykah Badu and Al Jarreau. 

She focused on writing and political/social causes dear to her heart after her hit-and-run accident.

Survivors include her sister, opera singer Nadine Herman.