Monday, March 28, 2016

Van Amburg's Last Broadcast on KGO-TV/Channel 7 from August 29, 1986; One of the most Powerful and Highest-Paid Bay Area Anchors Enjoys Retirement in El Cerrito



The following video above is Van Amburg's last broadcast on KGO-TV; in fact, his last newscast, period, from August 29, 1986, nearly 30 years ago.

Amburg, one of the most celebrated and famous Bay Area news anchors left KGO under mysterious circumstances but many believed Van's exit was a power struggle with ABC which owned KGO at the time --(Disney owns ABC today and KGO is an O and O --owned and operated station.)

 Amburg was the highest-paid (just over a million dollars) SF anchor; he and the late Jerry Jensen were a part of one of the most successful and profitable newscasts, "NewsScene", which dominated the ratings during the 70's and mid 1980's.

It was KGO that was the unofficial birthplace of the "Happy Talk" format; "If it bleeds, it leads" was a common industry tag line that came out of the Channel 7 newsroom. The circle7 logo became a regular presence on KGO's news platforms.

As of today, Amburg is reportedly alive and enjoying retirement in El Cerrito --he would be about 81 years of age and has chosen a quiet, elusive life--he does not do interviews.

{h/t: Michael Zwerling}

24 comments:

  1. Was reporter Bill Van Amburg in the news video his son? One would guess so.

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    1. Yes it was.

      Another piece of trivia...

      I came across this very recording almost 20 years ago.

      Ironically, it was sitting in the KPIX library. Someone there had recorded it and kept it around.

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  2. I remember him. He was great. I wonder why he is so private.

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  3. I'm a neighbor of VA & he's a real a-hole. You so much as look at him or his property the wrong way & he'll let loose on you with every name in the book. Sorry to rain on your parade, Rich, but I call it how I see it.

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    1. LOL. I knew his son at San Jose State; it must run in the family.

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    2. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see where Rich wrote that he was/is Mr. Congeniality.

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    3. I remember the night he retired, then co-owned KGO radio simulcasted the last few moments of the newscast.

      As for him being an a-hole, one of my uncles worked for KGO-TV as a technical director and mentioned many times Mr Amburg wasn't wasn't a nice fella.

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  4. Not to be nit picky, actually ABC at the time of Van Ambergs departure was owned by Capital Cities (purchase 1985), though I suspect the roots of this reported power struggle dated back to parent ABC/UPT.

    And Rich, since the time machine is available, it might be of interest to some to revisit ABC Sports in all its Roone Arledge's glory. Not that I'm a big sports fan but that was some pretty good pioneering broadcast sports programming and entertainment.

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    1. Also of note, his brother the GM of KABC was also pushed out by Cap Cities around the same time.

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  5. If I remember correctly Van did one interview since he retired, on KPIX with Dave McElhatton.

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  6. The video you posted was great. You can see some Bay Area media legends like Suzanne Shaw and Aaron Edwards. Of course, the late Pete Wilson and a great American Express commercial featuring Karl Malden. Something or someone must've made Van Amburg so salty and reclusive. Considering the state of television news these days, he should know he's got a lot of fans who were around to watch him. It's hard to watch most of the morons on TV these days.

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  7. And you can clearly notice tons of news from all over.
    They covered Stockton, Lodi, etc ... in just that one newscast.
    You get what you pay for.
    No back & forth Fox-tv "stupid-talk" wasting valuable news time.
    Asking field anchors silly questions, saying "thank you" multiple times.
    Why the hell do they say "Thank You" ... for that report.
    Hey fox dummy ..... Its your job.... No thank you needed.
    They are tops at wasting time..... Every single day !
    Spending 25 minutes talking about weather.

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  8. Van Amberg was personally responsible for the skyrocketing wages for news anchors and star reporters during the golden age, from about the early 70s to long after Van departed, through the early 00's.

    He went to KGO management and persuaded them that the spectacular rise in KGO ratings was due to him and his leadership of the Ch. 7 news team, and, more to the point, the ratings showed he was owed a portion of the profits that came from his work. It was a reasonable argument and it was not Van's fault that management agreed with him.

    Van's influence was such that even when the star power of news anchors was disproved (to a 1:1 effect), San Francisco Bay Area stations still agreed to compensation much higher than needed.

    He and Mac sat down for a totally irrelevant PIX sweeps promotion some years ago.

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  9. Amazing recording of an era gone by...news reporting the way it should be, the likes of which we most likely will never see again...

    Fun fact: I was actually in this broadcast, in a way; I was on the USS Carl Vinson in the Bering Sea during all those skirmishes with the Soviets. Most of us not in planes just waved at the bears from the flight and hanger decks. If you squint really hard (and have X-ray vision) you can see me 5 decks down from the flight deck roughly amidships standing watch in #2 plant...

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    1. Is that Reactor Plant #2? Navy "nukes," best in the World...always will be!

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  10. Did you know that Van Amberg was also Bill King's color announcer on the Raiders' radio broadcasts on KNEW from 1966-68? Van 'cut his teeth' in bay area broadcasting back in the mid 1960s as a 'communicastor' (that's what they used to call talk-show hosts on the radio), with KNEW. Joe Dolan, Pat Michaels, Hilly Rose, Steve Somers, and Robin King, (" and remember, love too, is 4 letter word!" is how King used to close out his broadcasts.) Van was middle of the road as fas politics went, while Michaels was the right winger and Joe Dolan the leftie.

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  11. I guess this may sound like I am living in the past...guilty as charged. Watching this reminds of what quality news looks like. So sad to see the state of affairs these days...when more people are worried about their Facebook ranking on rocket share as opposed to the lead story in the newscast.

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  12. When Ray Tannahill quit the KGO News Director (Elliot Bernstein) asked who was in the newsroom. Van was doing early morning news cut ins. Elliot said (this was a phone conversation) ask Van to stay and take Ray's place today.

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  13. The news hasn't been the same since the days of Van and Jerry.

    I wonder if Van lived in Marin County in the 70's? I used to see him driving north on 101 near Sausalito in his Jensen Interceptor.

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  14. Van may not have been the nicest guy (in a business that includes quite a few not-nice guys), but he was terrific at what he did, and I guess I had kind of forgotten after all these years. This was an excellent newscast -- nothing like it today. I believe his other brother, Tom Van Amburg, was the GM at KABC and also KCBS in Los Angeles in the eighties.

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  15. What a trip! If Van didn't invent the cult of the local news anchor, he certainly was the ultimate practitioner. When I was recruited by the then-news director in 1983, I was told I had to wait a couple of months because Van wanted his son Bill brought on first. There was no question that Van ran the newsroom, yet he was always gracious and professional with me.

    Van personally led the way to the top, but KGO reached even greater heights in the four years following his departure on the strength of all the on and off-camera staff and management. Ch. 7's coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and aftermath was as good as local TV news ever got.

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  16. When I was going to journalism school at SF State we referred to Channel 7 as "blood, guts and orgasm". I think the quitessential broadcast was the guy who's penis got amputated from him via a train crossing! They actually SHOWED the thing laying by a track. And why we shower praise on these actions is beyond me. One only need to go back to Newton Minnow's great speech in 1961 for his take on TV. It's come a long way but so much rings true today, "When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.
    But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.
    You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it."[1]

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    1. "KGO stands for Kickers, Guts, and Orgasms." Morley Safer, on 60 Minutes. Also, "Penis found on railroad tracks, the story at 11." Van Amburg's prime-time programming tease for a David Louie story. The tease is what has become broadcast legend, because the penis was never shown.

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    2. Beautifully said, thank you for posting the quote. Obviously the excesses that it describes have gotten exponentially worse every decade since then, including our local newscasts!

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