"Van Amburg is the finest. I mean the finest broadcast journalist I have ever had the pleasure to work with." High praise
indeed, when you consider these words are coming from Van's former boss, Pat Pollilo, former KGO-TV News Director. It is
praise well earned. The diversity of Van's background speaks for itself; having included everything from field reporting
to sports play-by-play to documentaries to the anchor position on more than one Bay Area news team.
Van is a long-time resident of the Bay Area and came to KGO-TV in 1969. He began his career as the right-hand man for
H.B. Kaltenborn doing radio broadcasts and shortly thereafter, the play-by-play commentary for the Oakland Raiders. He
has twice been honored with Peabody Awards, once for his commentary with the Raiders and once for a local television
documentary.
He reached the number one position in viewer popularity as anchorman on and later duplicated that feat by having the
most listened-to radio talk show on one of the Bay Area's major radio stations, that program being number one in
listener popularity for more than two years.
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