Herhold: KNTV fire destroyed the last remnants of an era

When fire roared through the old KNTV building in San Jose on Sunday, it demolished more than an aging and empty structure. It destroyed the last remnants of an early era of local television -- more improvisational, more fun and less calculated than today's broadcasts.

From the weekday "Record Hop," which drew its inspiration from "American Bandstand," to a kids' show called "Hocus Pocus," to the used-car ads late at night, the KNTV building served as host for shows that marked a generation in San Jose.

The fire's cause is still under investigation, although fire officials say they are looking at the homeless who camped inside the building. In that news lies a core of irony, because the KNTV studios were home for a legion of television producers and reporters over a half-century.

Members of the San Jose Fire Department monitor the remains of a five-alarm fire at Park Ave. and Montgomery St. in San Jose, Calif. on Monday, April 14, 2014. The roof and walls of the former KNTV-11 building collapsed during the fire. (Gary Reyes/Staff)

"It was a little like the Winchester Mystery House, in the sense that we kept having additions over the years," said former news anchor Maggi Scura. "Basically, it was a lot of creative, emotional funny characters in a small space, making something happen every day."

Bread trucks

In a sense, the story begins with bread trucks and conservative bankers. The Gilliland family, which owned the next-door Sunlite Bakery (a building later used by AT&T), saw an opportunity in television in the early 1950s, no bad call for any entrepreneur.

Station lore has it that when the Gillilands asked their banker for a loan to build a television studio, the banker asked what seemed like a logical question: What if television is just a passing fancy?

To parry that doubt, the building was constructed so that it could be a parking garage for bread trucks if television didn't work out. The ceilings were never really high enough for the new medium.

After its first broadcast on Sept. 12, 1955 as an independent station, KNTV did so well that the Gillilands got out of the bakery business several years later. The station was sold to Allen T. Gilliland, who also started San Jose's cable company, Gill Cable.

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Herhold: KNTV fire destroyed the last remnants of an era