E! Entertainment TV Names New Chief

After months without clear leadership, E! Entertainment Television Networks named a new president and chief executive Tuesday, tapping Mindy Herman, president and CEO of the cable industry’s pay-per-view consortium, In Demand.

Herman, 38, the third leader for E! since December 1998, takes over after a tumultuous period marked by massive high-level executive departures. Herman replaces Fran Shea, who resigned in August to spend more time with her newborn after serving eight months as acting president.

Shea reluctantly took the job at the urging of the channel’s controlling owner, Comcast Corp., when Lee Masters resigned in December 1998 after a 10-year run. Though Shea had agreed to stay on until a replacement was named, sources at E! say she has not been active at the company since summer.

Shea, formerly E!’s top programming executive, is one of nine executives who, along with Masters, enjoyed a huge payday when their stock options vested at the end of 1998. All but three of them have left in the last year, and more than 50% of the executives at the next highest level have also departed, according to former E! employees.

Herman said she intends to make E! as important to the entertainment arena as MTV is to the music world or the Discovery Channel is to nature. “We have to make it a category killer,” said Herman, who has worked with Comcast and other cable operators as head of In Demand, formerly known as Viewer’s Choice, for the last 13 months.

Whereas Comcast had underscored the need for a strong programming leader in naming Shea, Herman’s strength is in business development, new technology and international markets. At In Demand, she struck deals with major basketball and hockey leagues to allow cable operators to offer packages of out-of-market games to its viewers in competition with DirecTV, which has a similar deal with the NFL.

Herman said she was eager to return to Los Angeles.

Before In Demand, Herman was executive vice president of Fox Television Studios, where she oversaw worldwide sales and marketing, production, finance and business affairs. She also served stints at Fox’s FX cable channel and at the aborted Tele-TV digital television venture formed by a group of phone companies.