KPIX Retrospective: 1948-52

Excerpts from a KPIX 20th Anniversary retrospective which aired in 1968. Begins with footage of the station's opening on December 22nd 1948 at their original Nob Hill site in San Francisco (the first station to do so in Northern California). Engineer Alfred E. Towne and others are shown operating broadcast equipment KPIX personalities (including Ruby Hunter and Del Courtney) are seen at work and there is a brief glimpse of Vice President and General Manager Philip Lasky accepting an Emmy Award on behalf of the station. This sequence is followed by a KPIX Teletrips segment from 1952 shot on a construction site for the station's new premises at 2655 Van Ness Avenue. Sandy Spillman interviews San Francisco mayor Elmer Robinson and local journalists who reflect on the achievements of KPIX-TV over the previous 4 years and predict how the medium of television will develop within American society. Terrence O'Flaherty (Emmy Award winning television critic for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1950-86) declares that: "Television will undoubtedly be a perfectly polished mirror that will reflect whatever's put in front of it. I hope that the things that are put in front of it will be as perfect as the equipment itself."