AM America was a morning news

Breakfast television

Breakfast television or morning show , is a type of infotainment television program, broadcast live in the morning...

 program produced by ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 in an attempt to compete with the highly rated Today on NBC. The show never found an audience after its premiere on January 6, 1975. Lasting just under ten month

Month

A month is a unit of time, used with calendars, which was first used and invented in Mesopotamia, as a natural period related to the motion of the Moon; month and Moon are cognates. The traditional concept arose with the cycle of moon phases; such months are synodic months and last approximately...

s, its final installment aired on October 31.

The program's concept was based on Ralph Story

Ralph Story

Ralph Story, originally Ralph Bernard Snyder was an American television and radio personality. He was best remembered as the host of The $64,000 Challenge, a spin off of the game show The $64,000 Question, from 1956 until 1958.-Biography:Story was born Ralph Bernard Snyder in Kalamazoo, Michigan...

's AM, the local morning show on the network

Television network

A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...

's owned-and-operated

Owned-and-operated station

In the broadcasting industry , an owned-and-operated station usually refers to a television station or radio station that is owned by the network with which it is associated...

 Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 station KABC-TV

KABC-TV

KABC-TV, channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, licensed to Los Angeles, California. KABC-TV's studios are located in Glendale, California...

. Like Today, AM America employed two hosts and a news anchor. ABC chose Bill Beutel, who was co-anchor of Eyewitness News

Eyewitness News

Eyewitness News is a style of news broadcasting used by local television stations in different markets across the United States. It refers to a particular style of television newscast with an emphasis on visual elements and action video...

on the network's New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 flagship station WABC-TV

WABC-TV

WABC-TV, channel 7, is the flagship station of the Disney-owned American Broadcasting Company located in New York City. The station's studios and offices are located on the Upper West Side section of Manhattan, adjacent to ABC's corporate headquarters, and its transmitter is atop the Empire State...

, and Stephanie Edwards

Stephanie Edwards (TV personality)

Stephanie Ann Edwards is an American actress and television personality.-Career:Born in Kenyon, Minnesota, Edwards began her career as an actress, but became widely known as an on-air personality in the 1970s. She co-hosted ABC-TV's AM America jointly with Bill Beutel, the program was the...

 from Ralph Story's AM to host the program. Peter Jennings

Peter Jennings

Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings, CM was a Canadian American journalist and news anchor. He was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 until his death in 2005 of complications from lung cancer...

, who at the time was ABC's Washington correspondent, 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

Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...

 (with the exception of John Cleese

John Cleese

John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...

) made one of their earliest appearances on American television.

Edwards quit the show by the end of May

May

May is the fifth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with the length of 31 days.May is a month of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere and spring in the Northern Hemisphere...

, and Beutel followed her out a few months later. On November 3, the Monday

Monday

Monday is the day of the week between Sunday and Tuesday. According to international standard ISO 8601 it is the first day of the work week. According to the Islamic and Hebrew calendars, Sunday is the first day of the week...

 following its final broadcast, AM America was replaced by Good Morning America

Good Morning America

Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

.

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" and it looked a lot like the text was shortened to just AMERICA. Also, a star was placed inside the "A".

Franchising

The AM (city name) name was franchised

Media franchise

A media franchise is an intellectual property involving the characters, setting and trademarks of an original work of media , such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Generally, a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with merchandising and endorsements...

 to ABC stations across the United States. AM Los Angeles, the successor to Ralph Story's AM, featured Regis Philbin

Regis Philbin

Regis Francis Xavier Philbin is an American media personality, actor and singer, known for hosting talk and game shows since the 1960s. Philbin is often called "the hardest working man in show business" and holds the Guinness World Record for the most time spent in front of a television camera...

 and Sarah Purcell

Sarah Purcell

Sarah Purcell is an American former talk show host, game show host, and panelist.She was co-host of The Better Sex , Real People , America , and The Home Show , and made guest appearances on several TV dramas. She also co-starred in the 1981 film Terror Among Us with Tracy Reed...

. Purcell was replaced by Cyndy Garvey

Cyndy Garvey

Cyndy Garvey is an American television personality and former wife of baseball player Steve Garvey.-Career:...

 in 1978, and the show moved to New York City in 1983, eventually evolving into the current Live with Regis and Kelly

Live with Regis and Kelly

Live! with Kelly is a syndicated American television morning talk show, hosted by Kelly Ripa. The show has aired since 1983 in New York City and 1988 nationwide. Tony Pigg has been the show's announcer since its inception...

. WLS-TV

WLS-TV

WLS-TV, virtual channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The station operates their full power digital operations on UHF channel 44, with their digital fill-in translator on VHF channel...

's AM Chicago, hosted by Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...

, evolved into The Oprah Winfrey Show

The Oprah Winfrey Show

The Oprah Winfrey Show is an American syndicated talk show hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey. It ran nationally for 25 seasons beginning in 1986, before concluding in 2011. It is the highest-rated talk show in American television history....

in 1984. AM Buffalo

AM Buffalo

AM Buffalo is an American television talk show based in Buffalo, New York. The program has aired on WKBW-TV since its founding in 1978 and is hosted by Linda Pellegrino...

, which replaced a Dialing for Dollars

Dialing for Dollars

Dialing for Dollars was a franchised format local television program in the United States and Canada, popular in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.-Format:...

franchise on WKBW-TV

WKBW-TV

WKBW-TV, channel 7, is the ABC affiliate for the Buffalo, New York television market, and is one of many local Buffalo TV stations seen over-the-air and on cable in Canada. Its transmitter is located at 8909 Center Street in Colden. The station is owned by the Granite Broadcasting Corporation, who...

, also remains on air.