TV Special is the term used to define any television program which interrupts or temporarily replaces programming normally scheduled for a given time slot.

The term originally applied especially to major dramatized presentations of an hour or two which were broadcast during times normally occupied by episodes of one or more weekly television series, thus replacing the(se) series for a week. In the 1960s, multi-part Specials, over several days in a week, or on the same day for several weeks, evolved from this format, though these were more commonly called mini-series. At the same time, the designation "TV Special" for single-episode dramatized presentations was dropped in favor of Made-for- TV-movie, as a publicity gimmick. A miniseries, in a serial storytelling medium, is a production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. ... A television movie (also TV movie, TV-movie, made-for-TV movie, etc. ...

Other forms of TV Specials one-time comedy or musical events, one-shot seasonal programs ("Christmas specials", e.g.), irregular documentary events (usually of a sporting nature, e.g. the Olympics; or for live coverage of a popular cultural event, such as the Academy Awards), or spontaneous interruptions of active programming to cover an important news event. NeWS, for Network extensible Window System, was a windowing system developed by Sun Microsystems in the late 1980s. ...