Some have contended that Amerika was produced to provide a television counter to the controversial ABC movie The Day After, which depicted nuclear holocaust between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1983. The ABC executive responsible for both programs denied this view. Brandon Stoddard, president of ABC Circle Films, said on October 16, 1986, at a press tour at the UN Plaza Hotel in New York City that the idea for Amerika “never occurred during the controversy of The Day After, had nothing to do with The Day After . . . the birth of this idea happened substantially later.” Stoddard went on to say that a critic of The Day After, Ben Stein from the Herald Examiner, had written something, “at a much later point, a line . . . that had to do with what would life be like in America in a Russian occupation.” Stoddard was stuck, however, thinking about how to do such a television program without getting caught up in the actual struggle of the takeover. Sometime later, Stoddard’s spouse suggested doing the project at a point in time ten years after the takeover.

At the time, Amerika was the most controversial television event ever broadcast by ABC. The network received more mail and phone calls about Amerika before it was on the air than the total pre- and postbroadcast viewer reaction of any other program in the history of ABC, including the end-of-the-world story The Day After.

The critics of Amerika came from all sides of the political spectrum. Liberals feared the program would antagonize the Kremlin, jeopardizing arms control and détente. Some on the right thought the miniseries inadequately portrayed the brutality of the USSR. The UN thought the movie would erode its image.

Despite the prebroadcast level of controversy, most of the public did not object to the miniseries. Research conducted by ABC before the broadcast indicated that 96 percent of the population over 18 years old did not object to the program. Most Americans felt strongly that they should have the right to decide for themselves whether they would watch the program.

While almost half the country watched The Day After (46.0 rating), Amerika was seen in 19 percent of all TV households. Despite lots of publicity, controversy, and viewers, research conducted by William Adams at George Washington University showed that attitudes about the things most critics thought would be influenced by Amerika did not change. What Americans thought about the Soviet Union, the UN, or U.S.-Soviet relations did not change in before and after surveys.