Southland will possibly find a home on basic cable or with a premium channel, but there is something very encouraging about a critically acclaimed show to have a home on one of the big four networks. Shows like (early) Lost, (the first season of) 24, or something like Friday Night Lights (which is only alive because of co-funding from DirecTv) give television hope. It says that the mainstream audiences, the people without cable, approve of quality programming - that's the real (note: only) power of television: to unite everyone under great art. It just never really happens anymore.
The only comment NBC will make is that "the quality of the show wasn't a factor in the decision." NBC execs are looking to cut costs across the board. Hence The Jay Leno Show and shipping off Medium to CBS. Their highest rated show is the cheap-to-produce The Biggest Loser.
NBC's ideal situation, it seems, would be a schedule filled with reality shows - anything cheap to make. At a certain point its just about keeping one's job. Jeff Zucker doesn't want to stop running NBC Universal, and with an offer by Comcast (and now Rupert Murdoch is jumping in) on the table to buy the company, they want NBC Universal to look as attractive as possible to stockholders. Sure, there are some losers who care about quality television, but that is 95% of the time an oxymoron anyway so fuck it - let's make some money.
