Originally called "Focus On Youth," AMERICAN FOCUS, the brainchild of a high school student named Garth Ancier, premiered on a Trenton, New Jersey radio station in 1974. Impressed with the program's professional sound and excellent interviews, four of the nation's foremost commercial radio stations -- WNBC in New York, WBAL in Baltimore, KIRO in Seattle, and WRC in Washington, DC -- added "Focus" to their schedules in 1975. Over the years, financial support in the form of advertising from such corporations as the Shell Oil Company, Prudential Life, Union Carbide, and Johnson & Johnson has enabled the program to expand to over 120 top commercial stations and an audience estimated at approximately one million loyal listeners.

By 1980 "Focus On Youth" had expanded far beyond "youth" issues, and it began to rival more established radio and television interview programs in depth of research and quality of questioning. To reflect its wider scope, the show was renamed AMERICAN FOCUS in 1981.

In addition to providing an insightful service to its listeners, AMERICAN FOCUS has served as a training ground for leaders in the world of business, particularly broadcasting. Ancier is now Vice President for Network Television at Walt Disney. Other Focus graduates have included executives at UBU Productions, Turner Broadcasting, Hambrecht & Quist, The New York Times. Merrill Lynch, and NBC News.