Radio Executive Fined in Fonovisa Payola Case

Salvador Homero Campos, a former Spanish-language radio program director, was sentenced to 24 months’ probation and fined $15,000 in Los Angeles federal court Monday for failing to report to the Internal Revenue Service $100,000 he received in record company kickbacks.

Campos, 48, was vice president of programming at Sacramento-based Z-Spanish Radio, which owns and operates 32 stations and has 46 affiliates across the United States.

He admitted receiving as much as $15,000 a month from Van Nuys-based Fonovisa Records, the largest independent label in the Spanish music industry, in return for giving airplay to Fonovisa’s records. Fonovisa and two of its most senior executives previously pleaded guilty to several payola-related charges.

Campos could have been imprisoned for as long as three years and fined $250,000 under federal sentencing guidelines. But in a plea agreement earlier this year, prosecutors promised to recommend a lighter sentence in exchange for Campos’ cooperation in their ongoing probe of the industry.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Robinson has acknowledged that federal investigators are pursuing leads of payola in various markets ranging from Latin to urban music.