SATURDAY NOTESWhat an exhausting Friday with some real, legitimate Breaking News and end of month tidbits and various developments...
*It's not so unusual that a death that took place last week only made it to the news on Friday.
Van Amburg, of course, passed away a week ago Thursday surrounded by family. It was that family that was told by the funeral home that Van's death would not be made public until today (Saturday)
That didn't work out. Somebody at the funeral home will be getting a call, I'm sure, from the Amburg family.
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| Tony Russomanno |
*People forget Amburg started out on radio and real early in his career in the Bay Area did play-by-play for the Oakland Raiders before settling in to TV News.
*During the Amburg/"News Scene" run in the mid 1970's, KGO was the #1 Ratings leader --the closest station was KRON and they were a distance. Mind you KGO was able to kick the competition's ass with a very weak ABC, so weak they were 3rd place so KGO had no help from the network and was able to build its own audience from scrap, really.
*KGO Newscasts earned upwards of $25 million a year for the station. That's A LOT of cash pre-Internet. It was no wonder that Amburg was paid over a million dollars and worked hard to make sure his staff and reporters received max coin.
Amburg's Holy Toledo period (last Raiders assignment with Bill King: 1968 AFL Title game at New York, the game before Joe Namath guaranteed Jets glory) and his TV breakthroughs at the second Eisenhower Convention success in SF and as Sports Director for John Weston & Wanda Ramey at KPIX in 1960 already mentioned, Amburg's News Scene made money because ABC's News division was the weakest of the three (the network's Prime Time Entertainment started taking off in 1970 around the same time as News Scene did; but Howard K. Smith was way back of No. 1 Walter Cronkite at CBS and No. 2 John Chancellor at NBC)
ReplyDeleteTwo personal tidbits about Amburg were made very clear either through action or body language - he was a diehard Paul Newman fan, hence 'Cool Hand Luke' was the theme jingle for News Scene; while we barely noticed his family and never really knew too much outside of his sons, Amburg really never got over the cancer-caused loss of Jerry Jensen. The last 2-4 years at Circle 7 may have been an emotional mess for Van the Bay Man.
And finally, Amburg had a soft spot for kids that he didn't need to discuss at all. The proof was with his eye contact curious interest in Pete Giddings' Letter from Home segment during his weathercasts, where kids in elementary school classrooms together drew different weather skies to mail to Giddings, who pretty much didn't miss a single school in every corner of the Bay. Amburg clearly enjoyed watching these segments from his anchor seat, even while keeping his serious face on as was his style.
Giddings, as the remaining original survivor of the News Scene years (reporters like David Louie, Carolyn Tyler, Cheryl Jennings, and the retired Don Sanchez came later; Sanchez & Martin Wyatt were part of a revolving door of sportscasters that entered ex-sports anchor Amburg's selective sportscast circle) is right. There was no one like him.
Absolutely spot on.
DeleteThanks, Pete - told only the way someone who worked with him longer than any other can.
Van Amburg on 7, Dennis Richmond on 2, Fred Lacoss/Pete Wilson on 4 and Dave McElhatton on 5. News anchors like we'll probably not see again!
ReplyDeleteWilson actually succeeded Amburg in 1986, then moved to 4 at the start of the 1990s before returning in the early 2000s. Bookending LaCosse at 4 in the 1970s were Dave Valentine (remember when Frank Dill did double duty juggling his KNBR duties with sports anchoring at KRON? Happened during the Valentine run) and John Hambrick. In truth, the only other peak news periods for KRON were when Jerry Jensen anchored there between 1960 and 1968 before joining Amburg at KGO, then Pete Wilson's run in the 1990s.
DeletePreceding Richmond at 2 were George Reading, then Marcia Brandwynne. Of course, post-Richmond, Frank Somerville's FB posts drive Rich nuts.
PIX had John Weston all the way up to 1972, followed by a 3-year revolving door, then McElhatton's predecessor was Stan Bochman for 2 years (Bochman was the PIX anchor when Wayne Walker - RIP - and future KICU anchor Jan Hutchins were covering the Warriors' first Bay-based NBA title in 1975). Of course, if it weren't for a Lieberman annoyance named Rosenheim, Ken Bastida's role as McElhatton's successor could have been strengthened much further besides the peers' local Emmys and respect-based endurance Bastida has gained.
I believe you mean Stan Borman (initially paired with Wendy Tokuda).
DeleteAnd I think it was Stan Borman who played the somewhat pompous and humorous anchor in "The China Syndrome" starring Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon. I remember seeing it in the theater and Stan popped up and I shouted, Hey what's the guy from Channel 5 doing on the big screen!? He did a very good job. Wasn't much of a stretch!
DeleteDidn't John Hambrick have a brother named Judd who did the news on KTVU for a while in the 70s? IIRC, it was for about a year...
DeleteHope you heard Pat Thurston tonight...did a great segment on Van Amburg...gave lots of credit to you,Rich, by name, and by the title of the blog, and also to the readers who have posted comments..like 1:10 pm. Great coverage...
ReplyDeleteI worked ss an intern at KGO during their heydey. Tony is right about Van not using a teleprompter. Ask him, however,
ReplyDeleteif he remembers Van not allowing anyone else to use a teleprompter during the shows that he anchored. Nothing against Van. He was a good guy. That was just his MO. That
entire team -- Van, JJ, Jan Carson, John O'Reilly / Jim Celania treated fellow employees well. I can't say the same for Giddings.
One correction. Van Amburg might have been a Paul Newman fan, but that's not why the "Tar Sequence" from the "Cool Hand Luke" soundtrack became the theme of Channel 7's "NewsScene." Al Primo, the news director at WABC-TV New York, began using that theme for his "Eyewitness News" in 1968, and soon thereafter all of the ABC O&Os picked it up, along with other stations across the country. Van Amburg arrived at KGO in 1969.
ReplyDeleteA side note about newscast titles. Westinghouse Group W started using the "Eyewitness News" title at its stations in the late 1950s as an attempt to emphasize the fact that they used more film than the other guys. When Primo got to WABC, he changed the format so that reporters would appear on camera and would chit chat with anchors. The other ABC O&Os quickly copied the format. And all of the ABC O&Os picked up the name "Eyewitness News" too. All of them except KGO because KPIX at the time was a Westinghouse station and was already using the "Eyewitness" title. That's why KGO settled for the "NewsScene" moniker.
About one in five dollars KGO7 earned went into Van's pocket? That's having pull. Big time.
ReplyDelete1 in 5? Do your math big boy. If I read right they pulled in 25mil, Van got 1mi. That's still having huge pull. RIP Van.
DeleteI was never a huge fan of that group. The ads where they ride in on horses to advertise the broadcasts sort of turned me off.
ReplyDeleteI used to prefer Ron Magers at KPIX with Barry Tompkins on sports and the great Rolfe Peterson -- who had been at KGO-- as the resident critic.
When Magers left PIX to go to Chicago, that's where he stayed a long time, I believe at WSN, the ABC O&O there. Most of Magers' air time was actually at Noon, instead of the evenings.
DeleteThank you 1:10 pm and 11:01 pm for the tidbit info. Always interesting to hear how things started and why. For my youth Van and KGO in the '70's were the guideposts to growing up.
ReplyDeleteAnd especially thank 11:01 for the 'Luke' correction, which may not be noticed in another recent post earlier this evening. Yes, NY was first among the ABC O&Os to use the theme, and yes, the ABC stations used Eyewitness News as the name but KGO couldn't due to PIX doing so. Now CBS doesn't allow any O&Os to use Eyewitness News as a name, but KGO still won't join WABC & KABC. Must be to avoid internet confusion.
DeleteKYW and WJZ still use it. But the name in the Bay Area is associated with KPIX, so it would confuse people for KGO to start using it now. It would make viewers think KGO was trying to rip off KPIX, and why would a better station rip off a lesser one?
DeleteVan was with Bill King for the "Heidi Game" in November 1968. Magers and I believe Rod Sherry and Barry Tompkins all departed in late 1973, something like that, to clear the desk for an entirely new anchor team, with the laconic Gene Tuck (imported from Texas) and the bearded Andy Park (imported from Los Angeles). The new sportscaster was a bizarre choice -- the frenetic Milt Kahn, who I don't think had ever been a newscaster before. "Professor" Leon Hunsaker was the only holdover. It was a debacle. Kahn was gone within the year, Tuck not long after, clearing the way for Stan Bohrman. Good people like Ben Williams and Mike Lee survived.
ReplyDeleteMilt Kahn's replacement: Wayne Walker
ReplyDelete