OTI Festival

OTI Festival
Historical logo of OTI
Also known as	OTI Song Contest La OTI
Spanish	Festival OTI de la Canción / Gran Premio de la Canción Iberoamericana
Portuguese	Festival OTI da Canção / Grande Prêmio da Canção Ibero-Americana
Genre	Song contest
Based on	Eurovision Song Contest
Developed by	Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana
Country of origin	List of countries
Original languages	Spanish and Portuguese
No. of episodes	28 contests
Production
Production locations	Hosted by previous winner from 1972 to 1981 (List of host cities)
Production company	Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana
Original release
Release	25 November 1972 (1972-11-25) – 20 May 2000 (2000-05-20)
Related
Festival Mundial de la Canción Latina (1969–1970)

OTI Festival (Spanish: Festival OTI de la Canción / Gran Premio de la Canción Iberoamericana, Portuguese: Festival OTI da Canção / Grande Prêmio da Canção Ibero-Americana), often known simply as La OTI, was an international song competition, organised annually between 1972 and 2000 by the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI), featuring participants representing primarily Ibero-American countries. Each participating OTI member broadcaster submitted an original song primarily in Spanish or Portuguese to be performed on live television and transmitted to all OTI broadcasters via satellite. It was preceded by the Festival Mundial de la Canción Latina, held in 1969 and 1970 in Mexico.

The festival was an Ibero-American spin-off of the Eurovision Song Contest. The first edition was held at the Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos auditorium in Madrid on 25 November 1972 and the last one was held on 20 May 2000 in Acapulco. Since then, it has been cancelled due to the questioning of the voting system of the latter contests, the lack of sponsors, the low quality of the entrants and the withdrawal of some of the most iconic countries such as Brazil, Colombia and Spain. Twenty-seven countries have participated at least once in the festival, with Chile, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico and Venezuela participating in all twenty-eight editions.

The main goal of the festival was to generate a process of cultural and artistic fellowship between the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries. Although it was not as successful as the Eurovision Song Contest, it is its longest running and most successful spin-off to date, leaving a great mark in Latin America by giving many famous artists and hit songs.

Background

Main article: Festival Mundial de la Canción Latina

Although the OTI contest was inspired in the Eurovision Song Contest, the festival was preceded by the Festival Mundial de la Canción Latina which was held in Mexico DF in 1969 and 1970.

Participation

Map of the OTI Festival participating countries by debut year

The broadcasters that were eligible to participate in the OTI Festival needed to be active members of the Ibero-American Television Organisation. These active members were from countries which belonged to the Organization of Ibero-American States.

The participating countries were Spanish or Portuguese speaking countries, have large communities of Spanish or Portuguese speakers within their territory, such as the United States, or have lingual or cultural ties with Latin American countries, as happened with the Netherlands Antilles. The entrant songs were performed primarily in Spanish or Portuguese and were accompanied on stage by a full orchestra.

Both state financed and private broadcasters were able to join OTI as full members and in some cases different broadcasters collaborated during the airing of the event, as did the Venezuelan broadcasters Venevisión and RCTV.

Year Country making its debut entry 1972 Argentina Brazil Bolivia Chile Colombia Dominican Republic Panama Peru Portugal Puerto Rico Spain Uruguay Venezuela 1973 Mexico

Year Country making its debut entry 1974 Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Netherlands Antilles Nicaragua United States 1976 Costa Rica 1978 Paraguay 1986 Canada 1989 Aruba 1991 Cuba 1992 Equatorial Guinea

History

The OTI Festival was held for first time on 25 November 1972 at the Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos of Madrid. Thirteen countries took part in the first edition of the event. Spain, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Panama, Portugal, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico were the debuting countries.

After the first edition, the rest of the Ibero-American countries progressively started taking part in the event. The festival expanded even further away from the traditional Ibero-American sphere, to the point that even the United States, Netherlands Antilles, Aruba (which was a Dutch nation), and Equatorial Guinea (which was an African nation) took part in the event. In 1992, the festival reached its record of 25 participating countries, which made the 1992 Festival the biggest Song Contest in the whole world, even beating the number of competing nations of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1992, with the number being 23.

Mexico and Spain were the most successful countries in the history of the competition with six victories each while Argentina won the contest four times. Brazil was the fourth most successful country with three victories.

Hosting

The Congress Palace of Madrid was the first venue of the OTI Festival.

The location of the festival was decided following various criteria. Initially, the winning country would organize and celebrate the contest the following year, but after the victory of Nicaragua in 1977, the country could not host the contest due to the Nicaraguan Revolution. In those years, many participating countries suffered from political and economical instability. For that reason, from that year on, the host city was decided by a bid process organized by OTI.

Spain and Mexico were the countries that hosted the contest the most, with six editions each one. In total, thirteen countries hosted the festival, out of the twenty-five that ever participated.

Editions

X Edition cancelled

§ The orchestra was specially arranged for this edition

Year	Date of Final	City	Venue	Presenter(s)	Host broadcaster	Orchestra	Facts
1972	25 November	Madrid	Palacio de Congresos y Exposiciones	Rosa María Mateo Raúl Matas	TVE	RTVE Light Music Orchestra	The first time some countries broadcast in color
1973	10 November	Belo Horizonte	Palácio das Artes	Walter Forster Íris Lettieri	Rede Tupi	Rede Tupi Symphonic Orchestra	The first time the OTI Festival was held in Portuguese
1974	26 October	Acapulco	Teatro Juan Ruiz de Alarcón	Lolita Ayala Raúl Velasco	Televisa	Acapulco Philharmonic Orchestra
1975	15 November	San Juan	Telemundo Studio 2	Marisol Malaret Eddie Miró	Telemundo	Telemundo Symphonic Orchestra	The festival was held inside a television studio instead of the usual theater/auditorium
1976	30 October	Acapulco	Teatro Juan Ruiz de Alarcón	Susana Dosamantes Raúl Velasco	Televisa	Acapulco Philharmonic Orchestra	First time a country held the festival twice, with the same venue being used.
1977	12 November	Madrid	Centro Cultural de la Villa de Madrid	Mari Cruz Soriano Miguel de los Santos	RTVE	RTVE Light Music Orchestra	The only time a Central American country won; Nicaragua
1978	2 December	Santiago	Teatro Municipal	Raquel Argandoña Raúl Matas	TVN Canal 13 Canal 9 UCV Televisión	Philharmonic Orchestra of Santiago	1st OTI Festival host Raúl Matas returned to host the 7th Festival. First time the festival was not hosted by the winner as Nicaragua was in war, and the first time an OTI Festival was hosted by multiple broadcasters instead of one.
1979	8 December	Caracas	Teatro del Círculo Militar	Eduardo Serrano Carmen Victoria Pérez	Venevisión RCTV	§	The smallest theater ever to host the OTI Festival.
1980	15 November	Buenos Aires	Teatro General San Martín	Liliana López Foresi Antonio Carrizo	Canal 7 ATC	Undisclosed
1981	5 December	Mexico City	Auditorio Nacional	Raúl Velasco	Televisa		First time that an OTI Festival was hosted by only one single host instead of the usual host pair of a man and woman.
1982	27 November	Lima	Coliseo Amauta	Humberto Martínez Morosini Zenaida Solís Pepe Ludmir Silvia Maccera	Panamericana Televisión		First time a computerized voting board was used, and the second time an OTI Festival was held outside the usual theater or auditorium, this time being in an Arena/Stadium (with this being in the Amauta Colosseum)
1983	29 October	Washington, D.C.	DAR Constitution Hall	Rafael Pineda Ana Carlota	SIN		The first time that the voting of a winner was private, and the first time the festival was hosted by a nation that was not Spanish or Portuguese.
1984	10 November	Mexico City	Auditorio Nacional	Raúl Velasco Pilín León Claudia Cordoba	Televisa		The first time that the festival was hosted by more than 2 people. It was also the first time that instead of a winner being declared immediately, the Top 3 most voted by the jury repeated their songs, with them (the jury) re-voting to decide the winner. Controversially, the final results caused some of the audience to boo and leave the theater before Chile's Fernando Ubiergo could do his winner's performance (This being mostly due to Yuri, Mexico's choice, placing 3rd).
1985	21 September	Seville	Teatro Lope de Vega	Paloma San Basilio Emilio Aragón	TVE		First time Paloma San Basilio hosted the OTI Festival, who would later host 2 more festival, which made her the female person with the most OTI Festivals hosted and the person with the most Festivals hosted, behind Raúl Velasco.
1986	15 November	Santiago	Teatro Municipal	Pamela Hodar César Antonio Santis	TVN Canal 13 Canal 11		The event had to be delayed for sometime due to a terrorist attack that happened inside the theater
1987	24 October	Lisbon	Teatro São Luiz	Ana Zanatti Eládio Clímaco	RTP		Second time that the Festival was hosted in Portuguese instead of Spanish, but the introductory message and farewell speech were done in both languages.
1988	19 November	Buenos Aires	Teatro Nacional Cervantes	Pinky Juan Alberto Badía	Canal 7 ATC Canal 13 Artear		The last Festival to have a public voting system and board. One of the only times a host country won the Festival, with Argentina successfully beating Paraguay in Buenos Aires.
1989	18 November	Miami	Knight International Center	Lucy Pereda Antonio Vodanovic Don Francisco	Univision		The first time a country hosted the festival for consecutive years (two)
1990	1 December	Las Vegas	Caesars Palace Circus Maximus Showroom (now the Colosseum)	Antonio Vodanovic Alejandra Guzmán Emmanuel Fernando Allende María Conchita Alonso
1991	14 December	Acapulco	Centro de Convenciones	Raúl Velasco	Televisa		The last time Raúl Velasco hosted the Festival, hosting a total of 4 contests before retiring, making him the person that had the most hostng duties in the OTI Festival, so much so that almost every single year of the OTI Festival (except for some times and the years the event was in Mexico), he would be recognized by the many different hosts and entertainers, even getting special rewards and monuments for his commitments in the recognition and support of the OTI Festival and corporation.
1992	5 December	Valencia	Teatro Principal	Paloma San Basilio Joaquín Prat	TVE		Second time a country hosted the festival for consecutive years (three)
1993	9 October			Paloma San Basilio Francisco
1994	15 October			Ana Obregón Francisco
1995	11 November	San Bernardino	Anfiteatro José Asunción Flores	Menchi Barriocanal Rubén Rodríguez	Canal 13		Held for the first time in an outdoor venue, specifically an amphitheatre. It was the contest with the largest audience inside a venue, with almost 20,000 spectators.
1996	14 December	Quito	Teatro Nacional	Christian Jhonson Ximena Aulestia	Ecuavisa Teleamazonas Gamavisión
1997	25 October	Lima	Plaza Mayor	Jorge Belevan Claudia Doig	América Televisión		The second time the festival was held in an outdoor venue, this being in the middle square of the famous Plaza Mayor.
1998	14 November	San José	Teatro Nacional	Maribel Guardia Rafael Rojas	Repretel Teletica
1999	20 November	Veracruz			Televisa		Festival cancelled due to floods in the host city
2000	19 and 20 May	Acapulco	Centro de Convenciones	Emmanuel Andrea Legarreta Gabriela Spanic Otto Sirgo	Televisa		For the 2000 Festival, the event was held for 2 days. In those 2 days, the Festival did an elimination round (semi-final) and the usual finale round (final). The festival was considered the worst out of all the other festival years and the most poorly organized, which caused the end of the OTI Festival.

Voting system

The voting system to decide the winner of the contest changed over the years. At first, the winner was decided telephonically by five national jurors from every participating country. Each jury member voted only for their favorite song and the winner was the song which had more points at the end of the process. In 1977 the number of national jurors per country was changed to three due to an increase of participating countries and the resulting much longer show.

From 1982 on, the winner was decided by a professional room jury composed by famous music personalities. One year later, the voting system was changed in a way that the voting process was secret. Since that year, only the three most voted countries were revealed at the end of the show which often generated scandals and controversies until 1988, when a new computerized voting system instead of the old-style board, made using cards that had the votes of the juries.

Winners

Year	Country	Song	Singer(s)	Songwriter(s)
1972	Brazil	"Diálogo"	Claudia Regina & Tobías	Paulo César Pinheiro Baden Powell
1973	Mexico	"Qué alegre va María"	Imelda Miller	Celia Bonfil
1974	Puerto Rico	"Hoy canto por cantar"	Nydia Caro	Nydia Caro Ricardo Ceratto
1975	Mexico	"La felicidad"	Gualberto Castro	Felipe Gil
1976	Spain	"Canta cigarra"	María Ostiz	María Ostiz
1977	Nicaragua	"Quincho Barrilete"	Guayo González	Carlos Mejía Godoy
1978	Brazil	"El amor... cosa tan rara"	Denisse de Kalafe	Denisse de Kalafe
1979	Argentina	"Cuenta conmigo"	Daniel Riolobos	Chico Novarro Raúl Parentella
1980	Puerto Rico	"Contigo, mujer"	Rafael José	Ednita Nazario
1981	Spain	"Latino"	Francisco	Pablo Herrero José Luis Armenteros
1982	Venezuela	"Puedes contar conmigo"	Grupo Unicornio	Luis Gerardo Tovar Carlos Moreán
1983	Brazil	"Estrela de papel"	Jessé	Jessé F. Santos Elifas V. Andreato
1984	Chile	"Agualuna"	Fernando Ubiergo	Fernando Ubiergo
1985	Mexico	"El fandango aquí"	Eugenia León	Marcial Alejandro
1986	United States	"Todos"	Damaris Carbaugh, Miguel Ángel Guerra & Eduardo Fabiani	Vilma Planas
1987	Venezuela	"La felicidad está en un rincón de tu corazón"	Alfredo Alejandro	Luis Gerardo Tovar Arnoldo Nali
1988	Argentina	"Todavía eres mi mujer"	Guillermo Guido	Carlos Castellón
1989	Mexico	"Una canción no es suficiente"	Analí	Jesús Monarrez
1990	Mexico	"Un bolero"	Carlos Cuevas	Francisco Curiel Pedro Cárdenas
1991	Argentina	"Adónde estás ahora"	Claudia Brant	Claudia Brant Sebastián Schon
1992	Spain	"A dónde voy sin ti"	Francisco	Chema Purón
1993	Spain	"Enamorarse"	Ana Reverte	Alejandro Abad
1994	Argentina	"Canción despareja"	Claudia Carenzio	Pocho Lapouble
1995	Spain	"Eres mi debilidad"	Marcos Llunas	Alejandro Abad
1996	Spain	"Mis manos"	Anabel Russ	Chema Purón Eduardo Leiva
1997	Mexico	"Se diga lo que se diga"	Iridián	Francisco Curiel José Manuel Fernández Pedro Cárdenas
1998	Chile	"Fin de siglo: Es tiempo de inflamarse, deprimirse o transformarse"	Florcita Motuda	Florcita Motuda
2000	United States	"Mala hierba"	Hermanas Chirino	Angie Chirino Olga María Chirino Emilio Estefan

Spanish singer Francisco is the only artist to have won the competition twice (1981 and 1992). Spanish songwriters Alejandro Abad (1993 and 1995) and Chema Purón (1992 and 1996) won the competition twice, as did Mexican songwriters Francisco Curiel and Pedro Cárdenas (1990 and 1997).

By country

Map of the OTI Festival participating countries by number of victories

OTI Festival wins by country

Wins	Country	Years
6	Spain	1976, 1981, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996
	Mexico	1973, 1975, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1997
4	Argentina	1979, 1988, 1991, 1994
3	Brazil	1972, 1978, 1983
2	Puerto Rico	1974, 1980
	Venezuela	1982, 1987
	Chile	1984, 1998
	United States	1986, 2000
1	Nicaragua	1977

Legacy

Although the OTI Festival has not been celebrated since 2000, the festival is still widely remembered in many countries, especially in Mexico, where the festival was always well received by the audience, even when the popularity of the festival was declining. The contest was enormously popular there thanks to the "National OTI contest", which was the national final to select the Mexican entrant for the international OTI Festival. Many famous singers such as Juan Gabriel, Luis Miguel, Lucero, or the girl band Pandora, tried to represent their country in the OTI Festival, but they didn't win the national contest.

Many popular names from Spain took part in the OTI Festival including the band Trigo Limpio, that represented the country in 1977 before representing Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 1980. Marcos Llunas won the OTI Festival 1995, two years before representing Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997. Betty Missiego who represented Peru in the OTI Festival 1972, represented Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 1979. Other well known Spanish OTI contestants were Marisol, Dyango, Vicky Larraz, and Camilo Sesto.

Many of the names that took part in the OTI Festival for Portugal also represented the country in Eurovision, such as Anabela, Paulo de Carvalho, José Cid, Dora, Dulce Pontes, Adelaide Ferreira, Simone de Oliveira, and Tonicha.

One Eurovision winner has previously participated in the OTI Festival: Dave Benton, who sang for Netherlands Antilles in 1981, won the Eurovision Song Contest 2001 for Estonia, performing the song "Everybody" with Tanel Padar and 2XL.

Return attempts

As the mark of the OTI Festival in Latin America is still big, some organisations of diverse nature have tried to revive the festival. Some Mexican artists also made public their support to a return to the screens of the OTI Festival.

In March 2011, it was announced by some online newspapers that Televisa was preparing for the relaunch of the event in two stages, the first one, was to revive the "National OTI Contest", the Mexican national final, while the second one would be to revive the international and main OTI Festival. The aim of this attempt to bring to life the festival was to give the opportunity to young performers to show their talent. The festival at the end never took place, but it was neither cancelled.

In June 2016, it was announced the relaunch of OTI as a media organisation. The broadcasting union was renamed as "Organización de Telecomunicaciones de Iberoamerica" (Iberoamerican Telecommunications Organisation) the organisation evolved from being a television contents exchange platform to include members of a broader nature such as newspapers and telephone-internet companies apart from TV and radio channels. This relaunch instantaneously sparked rumors about a possible relaunch of the festival that were later denied.

In 2017 it was announced the start of an organisation called "Organización de Talento Independiente" (Independent Talent Organisation) which in Spanish casually coincides with the acronym "OTI". The main goal of the organisation was to try to recreate the festival between Mexican singers and artists from the Latin community of the United States. Although the festival was not a competition between broadcasters of different participating countries, the competition was held in the Mexican city of Puerto Peñasco, Sonora.

In February 2022, RTVE announced Hispavision, a song festival where Spanish-speaking Latin American countries will take part alongside Brazil and Portugal as invited nations. The project was scheduled to start in 2023 and would be held in Cartagena, Colombia.

In 12 July 2022, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced its expansion of the Eurovision Song Contest brand to Latin America. The planned contest will be produced by the same producers of other Eurovision spin-offs, including the American Song Contest and the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest Canada. They have begun searching for a viable host city.

External links

• Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana Website