Juancarlos Ortiz LA Spanish talk radio pioneer passes.

Juancarlos Ortiz, veteran Los Angeles Spanish-language talk radio host, author and motivational speaker, died Wednesday, December 6 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, CA from complications due to leukemia.

“Juancarlos was a tremendously talented and loved member of our AM 830 family as well as the entire Los Angeles broadcast community, but more importantly he was a good man, a wonderful father and a gentle soul who is gone much too soon. Our hearts are broken. He touched many lives through personal contact and the airwaves and will be missed immensely,” said AM 830 General Manager Alan Fuller.

A native of Mexico City, Dr. Juancarlos Ortiz spent 15 years in the Spanish-language talk radio format. He began his career providing voiceovers for Grupo Acir in Mexico City in 1972. Juancarlos came to the U.S. in 1982 to complete his studies and by 1988 he had moved to Los Angeles where he began a 7 year stint working at KTNQ. From 1994 – 1995 he hosted a weekly show discussing various religious topics and beliefs. He was then given a late weeknight show discussing sexual relationships, opinions and experiences. This quickly transitioned into his afternoon show Contacto, a forum for political issues which lasted until 2001. In its 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm time slot, Contacto became the #1 Hispanic Los Angeles afternoon radio program. Juancarlos joined AM 830 Los Angeles in January 2003 where he hosted El Show de Juancarlos and was nationally syndicated on the Radiovisa Network.

Juancarlos was also very involved with Spanish-language television. Through consulting positions at Telemundo, TV Azteca and Univision he helped design programs on marital issues and personal growth and became a frequent guest on various national television programs.

In November 2003 Juancarlos authored a non-fiction book, Las Reglas del Amor, which was published by Random House. A frequent public speaker, Juancarlos’ topics of choice ranged from psychology trends to marital issues, adult education to teen sex education. One of his passions was to give motivational speeches to teens on the benefits of continuing education and earning a college degree.