STILL THE GOLD STANDARD --Circle7 News at its Happy Talk Best: Van, Pete, john and Jerry.
*They did what they did and had a great time to boot. An underrated newscast with hard-hitting stories and terrific anchoring. I'm not saying they were perfect but damn near. It was not everyone's favorite but you can't dispute hard numbers.
THEY DOMINATED!
Nobody came close. PIX tried everything--it didn't work. Channel 2 was the closest to anyone even remotely catching them but even they failed big time.
Van Amburg, in my book, still the greatest news anchor Bay Area history. Jerry Jensen was the perfect #2; always self-effacing and deferential and smooth as hell. Sure, the end circular file was often softie but who cares, it worked. O'Reilly was the weakest link but he played the macho man on sports with perfect 70's flair.
Pete Giddings was the biggest jerk in the world (and highest-paid too) but he was the BEST weather guy in the market and unintentionally funniest --the "letter from home" --and Pete's frequent Thursday video of himself skiing down a Tahoe ski resort --what a blast.
You could accuse all of them as misogynists. (Insert laughter)
Nothing says I'm only good at three things - fighting, screwing and reading the news - like matching blazers with sewn on station patches. To the suit store, Rich!
ReplyDeleteAll pro's every one of them. Van instilled a great work ethic and his grandson has done great things in the entertainment industry down in LA now with Apple.
ReplyDeleteYes. Van was old school. Never used a teleprompter and
Deletedid not allow his colleagues to do so when they were on
the air together. Jan Carson and Jim Celania (Sports) joined the team later
The gold standard in an anchor team. That must be from early 70s as it shows the set used during that era. I think it was 73 or 74 when they got the double sided set with the big squeaky weather map in the centre. This is when NewsScene became a 2 hour block at 5PM.
ReplyDelete- Before Richmond & McElhatton began to make dents in the ratings by the late 1970s-early 1980s, Van was very much The Man among anchors. Love that he relied on his notepad more than a teleprompter!
ReplyDelete- Jerry Jensen was happy as a No. 2. From 1960-68, he was the No. 1 at KRON, and if you hear Assignment Four archives from 1967-68, one can tell by the tone of voice that Jensen was ready to move on. Teaming Jensen with Amburg was definitely a stationwide jackpot.
- Ah, the sports desk. O'Reilly was the longest tenured from 1969-75. Then the carousel began with names like Tom Janis, Don Sanchez (same long-time versatile reporter at Circle7), Jan Carson, Jim Celania (remember the "Give Him Six Weeks" ad and he made it past six weeks? Well, I'm not sure Celania lasted a year), before finally settling on Martin Wyatt for two decent stints. Because Van Amburg used to anchor sports at KPIX and even spent a season as Bill King's analyst for Raiders football (1968, the year Oakland finished fourth behind the Jets, Baltimore Colts, & Cleveland), Van was always hardest on the sportscasters when he was KGO-TV anchor.
- There is a website page called petegiddingsweather.com. Pete Giddings still loves meteorology, but when his tenure at ABC7News ended in the mid-1990s, he ended up in Reno, Salinas, and perhaps a few other places. Unsettled life would be an understatement. Still, Giddings knew and still knows his weather (bet he has an opinion or two about the smoky skies and heat waves of the past two weeks). And it was real cool of Pete to talk to Rich the week KGO-TV lost its biggest giant in Van on June 22, 2017, which put a damper on Circle 7's Warriors Championship celebration 10 days earlier. Pete said it all about Van, "One of a kind". I believe Giddings is the only original News Scener left with us.