Around 6 million viewers tuned in to the pilot and NBC picked up “The Midnight Special” as a 90-minute weekly series, launching on Feb. 2, 1973, in the 1 a.m. time slot.

“The Midnight Special” was part of a mini-wave of late-night rock-music TV shows in the early 1970s that also included ABC’s “In Concert” and the syndicated “Don Kirshner’s Rock ...

Around 6 million viewers tuned into the pilot and NBC picked up “The Midnight Special” as a 90-minute weekly series, launching on Feb. 2, 1973, in the 1 a.m. time slot.

That new form of music was the video, of course. MTV made its debut on Aug. 1, 1981, just three months after The Midnight Special closed its doors.