From the man that brought audiences The West Wing and ER comes another helping of tough-talking Los Angeles cops.

On March 2, TNT will roll out never-before-seen episodes of John Wells’ Southland, a critically acclaimed police drama that was canceled by NBC. Having been bumped from its 10 p.m. slot by the network’s similarly short-lived Jay Leno Show, NBC’s loss became TNT’s gain–or so executives from the Time Warner ( TWX – news – people )-owned cable network hope.

In the meantime, the multiple Emmy award-winning show-runner talked to Forbes about the series’ cancellation, NBC’s troubles and why he still loves broadcast television.

Forbes: What’s been the biggest change to the TV medium since you started two decades ago?

Wells: The first huge change was the relaxation of the fin-syn [financial interest and syndication] rules, which meant that the networks were free to own their own programming. Even though there were promises made at the time that it wouldn’t change the environment, it’s completely changed it because now companies primarily buy from themselves. I guess they all buy some things from other people because they want to spread the risk on certain kind of shows. They tend to buy the very expensive shows from other suppliers so that the deficits can be handled by others.

Read the full interview at:  http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/17/southland-tv-nbc-business-entertainment-wells.html