AM America was a morning news program produced by ABC in an attempt to compete with the highly rated Today on NBC.

The program's concept was based on Ralph Story's AM, the local morning show on the network's owned-and-operated Los Angeles station KABC-TV.

[3] Kennedy died of bone cancer on November 5, 1974, just two months prior to the series' debut,[4][5] and was eventually replaced by ABC's Washington correspondent Peter Jennings who provided the news reports.

[6] 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 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.