It takes at least a year for a new network president to stamp a schedule and claim―or be blamed for―the results. After 14 months on the job, USA Network President Doug Herzog must know, as USA launches a slate of new originals and specials for summer, that it's time to put up or shut up. "We didn't have anything to talk about for a long time, and now we do," said Herzog, the creative force at USA since his former boss, USA Cable President Stephen chao, stepped down last fall. "Original programming is not an elective." Herzog wants to change the cable conversation. The Osbournes and The Shield have been stealing the limelight long enough. His network―which once had hit originals Silk Stalkings and La Femme Nikita―is back in the original-series business. Two new ones―the first projects picked by Herzog―hit the schedule this summer: Up first, on June 16, is Dead Zone, a supernatural thriller originally made as a UPN pilot; Monk, billed as Columbo with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, debuts July 12. Each cost an estimated $1 million per episode.
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