This site is a tribute to his legacy by his son Cleve.

     Klaus Landsberg, born in Germany in 1916, early proved himself an electronics genius.  At nine, he was building radios in matchboxes; at sixteen he built the most effective short-wave receiver ever designed.  In 1937, he escaped to the USA from Nazi Germany with a secret navigation invention that helped lead to radar and sonar discoveries during World War II.  Soon after he arrived in the United States, he was assisting with NBC’s first public demonstration of television at the New York World’s Fair.  After a stint with Du Mont Laboratories, Landsberg headed west to set up Los Angeles’ first commercial television station for Paramount Pictures.

     Under Landsberg’s visionary direction, KTLA developed an unrivaled reputation for on-the-spot news coverage of major events.  KTLA’s ability to scoop Los Angeles’ newspapers was demonstrated in 1947 when Landsberg rushed his cameras to the scene of an electroplating plant explosion.  In 1952, Landsberg oversaw the construction of a remote hook-up to the Nevada desert for a live broadcast of the first atomic explosion seen in the nation’s living rooms.  Half a month before the blast, AT&T had announced that it would take eight months to set up the remote connections.  Landsberg went into action.  Using Marine helicopters, he ferried specially modified equipment to an uncharted mountain peak for the feedback to Los Angeles, where it was then picked up by the networks.

     As program director, Klaus Landsberg kept KTLA first in the Los Angeles ratings despite competition from six other stations and four networks.  (In fact, Landsberg himself created the first West Coast network in 1948 with a link-up to San Diego.)  From the inception of the Emmy Awards in 1949, KTLA won more than any other two stations combined.  Programming on KTLA consistently reflected Landsberg’s ability to develop new show formats and tap new sources of talent.  Time for Beany, a fifteen-minute daily children’s show, won three Emmys.  City at Night was another award-wining show broadcast live from unique Southern California locales.  Producer and director of over 3,500 telecasts, Landsberg gained a reputation unequaled in the television industry.  Despite his untimely death from cancer in 1956, Klaus Landsberg will be remembered as early television’s foremost and finest executive.