''AM America'' was a morning news program produced by ABC in an attempt to compete with the highly rated ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...

'' on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...

. Premiering on January 6, 1975, the show never found an audience against ''Today'' or the CBS combo of the '' CBS Morning News'' and ''

Captain Kangaroo ''Captain Kangaroo'' is an American children's television series that aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for 29 years, from 1955 to 1984, making it the longest-running nationally broadcast children's television progr ...

''. Lasting just under ten months, its final installment aired on October 31.Robertson, Campbell. "Bill Beutel, 75, Dies; Longtime Anchor of 'Eyewitness News' in New York," ''The New York Times'', Monday, March 20, 2006.
/ref> It would be replaced the following Monday (November 3) by ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. ...

History

The program's concept was based on '' Ralph Story's AM'', the local morning show on the network's owned-and-operated

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

station

KABC-TV KABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains ...

.Ehrman, Mark. "Why Is This Woman Smiling?" ''Los Angeles Times'', Sunday, August 30, 1998.
/ref> Like ''Today'', ''AM America'' employed two hosts and a news anchor. Originally selected in August 1974 as cohosts were Bill Beutel who was co-anchor of ''

Eyewitness News ''Eyewitness News'' is a style of television news presentation that emphasizes visual elements and action video, replacing the older "man-on-camera" newscast. History Pioneered by Westinghouse The earliest known use of the ''Eyewitness Ne ...

'' on the network's

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

flagship station

WABC-TV WABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios in the Lincoln Square neigh ...

, Stephanie Edwards from ''Ralph Story's AM'' and Bob Kennedy who hosted morning

talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk S ...

''Kennedy and Company'' on

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WLS-TV WLS-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on North Stat ...

. Kennedy died of

bone cancer A bone tumor is an abnormal growth of tissue in bone, traditionally classified as noncancerous (benign) or cancerous (malignant). Cancerous bone tumors usually originate from a cancer in another part of the body such as from lung, breast, th ...

on November 5, 1974, just two months prior to the series' debut, and was eventually replaced by ABC's Washington correspondent

Peter Jennings Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings (July 29, 1938August 7, 2005) was a Canadian-born American television journalist who served as the sole anchor of '' ABC World News Tonight'' from 1983 until his death from lung cancer in 2005. He dropped ...

who provided the news reports. One notable episode of ''AM America'' aired on April 25, 1975, when members of the British comedy troupe

Monty Python Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over fo ...

(with the exception of

John Cleese John Marwood Cleese ( ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and ...

, who had temporarily left the group) made one of their earliest appearances on American television. (The program ended with the Pythons attempting to tear apart the set and abscond with everything that wasn't nailed down, including Edwards.) Edwards quit the show by the end of May, and Beutel followed her out a few months later. On November 3, the Monday following its final broadcast, it was replaced with a more well-known, more successful effort, ''

''.

Logo

The logo for ''AM America'' had the letters A and M colored in blue while the rest of the word "America" was colored in red. The "AM" overlapped with "America". Also, a star was placed inside the "A".

Theme music

The series'

theme music Theme music is a musical composition that is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances ...

was "Spirit Of '76 (AM America)," an

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instr ...

composed by William Goldstein which was released as a single for

Motown Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''mot ...

in November 1975.

Franchising

The ''AM (city name)'' name was

franchised Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

to ABC stations across the United States, for locally produced morning talk programs (which generally aired during the 9 a.m. hour, after the national program ended; they generally had one or two hosts, and most had a live studio audience, especially during the 1980s). * ''AM Los Angeles'', the successor to ''Ralph Story's AM'', featured

Regis Philbin Regis Francis Xavier Philbin (; August 25, 1931 – July 25, 2020)Archived aGhostarchiveand thWayback Machine was an American television presenter, talk show host, game show host, comedian, actor, and singer. Once called "the hardest working ma ...

and

Sarah Purcell Sarah Purcell (born Sarah Pentecost on October 8, 1948, Richmond, Indiana) is an American former talk show host, game show host, and panelist. She was co-host of '' The Better Sex'' (1977–1978), '' Real People'' (1979–1984), ''America'' (1 ...

. Purcell was replaced by Cyndy Garvey in 1978, and the show moved to New York City in 1983 (where it replaced ''AM New York''), eventually evolving into the current ''

Live with Kelly and Ryan ''Live with Kelly and Ryan'' (or simply ''Live'') is an American syndicated morning talk show hosted by Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. Executive produced by Michael Gelman, the ''Live with...'' show formula has aired under various hosts since ...

''. After the departures of Philbin and Garvey, ''AM Los Angeles'' continued on KABC-TV featuring at various points Paul Moyer, Ann Martin, Harold Greene, Steve Edwards, Cristina Ferrare and Tawny Little until 1991 when the program was replaced by '' Live with Regis and Kathie Lee''. *

's ''AM Chicago'' (itself a successor to the ''Kennedy and Company'' series hosted by Bob Kennedy, who would have been an ''AM America'' co-host prior to his unexpected death), hosted by (among others)

Sandi Freeman Sandi Freeman-Geller is an American journalist and cable television pioneer. She hosted ''Freeman Reports'' on CNN for five years. Previously, she won an Emmy for her work at WLS-TV. At the height of her career at CNN, she was often referred to ...

, Steve Edwards, John Barbour, Robb Weller, Tim Weigel,

John Callaway John Callaway (August 22, 1936 – June 23, 2009) was an American journalist, who appeared on radio and television as a host, interviewer and moderator. He was the original host of ''Chicago Tonight'', a nightly news program broadcast on the Ch ...

and Oprah Winfrey. The program evolved into ''

The Oprah Winfrey Show ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', often referred to as ''The Oprah Show'' or simply ''Oprah'', is an American daytime broadcast syndication, syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicag ...

'' which aired in the former ''AM Chicago'' time slot from 1986 to 2011. After ''Oprah'' ended, WLS-TV premiered '' Windy City Live'' which aired in the same time slot until 2013 when it was replaced by '' Live with Kelly and Michael''. *

WXYZ-TV WXYZ-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside independent station WMYD (channel 20). Both stations share studios at Broadcast House on 10 ...

had an ''AM Detroit'' in the mid-1970s (hosted by Dennis Wholey) which was replaced by ''Kelly & Company'', with former ''Action News'' co-anchorman John Kelly and weathercaster Marilyn Turner (a husband-and-wife team), which ran through the early 1990s. *

KGO-TV KGO-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's ABC network outlet. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, KGO-TV mai ...

's ''AM San Francisco'' (aired from 1975 to 1988) featured the husband-and-wife team of Fred LaCosse and Terry Lowry. * '' AM Buffalo'', which replaced a ''