By Cameron Coats and Adam R Jacobson
He began his career as an on-air announcer at KBRG in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose region some 50 years ago and in the 1990s teamed with Amador Bustos as VP of Programming for Z Spanish Radio and its Z-Spanish Network, a pioneer among regional Mexican-focused Hispanic-owned broadcast media companies.
Now, the industry is pausing to remember Homero Campos, who has died at the age of 70.
News of Campos’ passing was first reported by Streamline Publishing’s Radio Ink on Monday morning.
Campos was born and raised in Tucson. From the early 1970s through the early 1990s, he established himself as one of the leading programmers of Spanish-language music radio in the Western U.S. This led him to team with Bustos in 1992 to launch the Sacramento-based Z-Spanish Network. The company expanded to more than 25 stations, all of which were acquired by the company that became Entravision Communications in 2000. The purchase price was a staggering $475 million.
In February 2001, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, Campos — no longer involved with the Z-Spanish stations — pleaded guilty to a single felony tax count for failure to report payola earnings on his tax returns. Specifically, Campos was charged with taking more than $200,000 in kickbacks in return for airplay while still working with Bustos at Z-Spanish, between 1995 and 1997. In particular, he admitted that Fonovisa gave as much as $15,000 per month during that time.
While such actions are permissible in Mexico, in the U.S. such an offense could have cost Campos hundreds of thousands of dollars and prison time. Campos was sentenced to 24 months’ probation and fined $15,000 by a Los Angeles federal court.
Following the incident, Campos continued programming and hosting for Mr. Bustos in the successor to Z-Spanish, Bustos Media. Campos was also an independent consultant.
In a message posted to all Bustos Media station social media pages, the organization says, “The Bustos Media Family deeply regrets the death of our colleague and friend Mr. Salvador Homero Campos. We send our most heartfelt condolences to his family for this irreparable loss. Rest in peace.”
