AM America was a
morning news program produced by
ABC in an attempt to compete with the highly rated Today on
NBC. 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. Lasting just under ten months, its final installment aired on October 31.[1] It was replaced the following Monday, November 3, by Good Morning America.
One notable episode of AM America aired on April 25, 1975, when members of the British comedy troupe
Monty Python, with the exception of
John Cleese 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.[7]
Edwards quit the show by the end of May, and Beutel followed her out a few months later.[2] On November 3, the Monday following its final broadcast, it was replaced with a more well-known, more successful effort, Good Morning America.[1]
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". A star was placed inside the "A".
Theme music
The series'
theme music was "Spirit Of '76 (AM America)," an
instrumental composed by William Goldstein which was released as a
single for
Motown in November 1975.[8][9]
Franchising
The AM (city name) name was
franchised 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).
WXYZ-TV 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),[10] which ran through the early 1990s.
KGO-TV's AM San Francisco (aired from 1975 to 1988) featured the husband-and-wife team of Fred LaCosse and Terry Lowry.
Nancy Fleming co-hosted for a period in the 1970s. Before 1975, the program was simply called AM and was hosted by
Jim Dunbar (best known for being a longtime personality for KGO radio). The show was renamed Good Morning Bay Area in 1988 and ran under this title until being replaced by Live with Regis and Kathie Lee.
Additionally,
KATU in Portland has aired AM Northwest since the debut of AM America. There also was a short lived AM Northwest program on Seattle's
KOMO-TV (sister station to KATU) in either the 1980s or 1990s. The KATU and KOMO-TV versions had different hosts and guests, but the debut broadcast on KOMO included on air interaction with the hosts at AM Northwest in Portland.
Some non-ABC affiliated stations such as
CBS affiliate
KHOU in
Houston and then-
NBC owned-and-operated station
WKYC in
Cleveland have used the AM branding for their programs AM Houston and AM Cleveland, respectively.[11][12]