OTI Festival

After the , which was held in Mexico City in 1969 and 1970, the (OTI) created the /, also known as /, as a televised international song competition for its member broadcasters following the format of the Eurovision Song Contest. == Participation ==

All active members of the OTI were eligible to participate in the OTI Festival. Both state financed and private broadcasters from member countries of the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI) were able to join OTI as full members. Since only one entry per country was allowed, in some cases, different broadcasters from the same country collaborated to participate and broadcast the festival jointly. The songs in the competition had to be original, no longer than 3 minutes, performed live accompanied by a full orchestra, and have all lyrics in Spanish or Portuguese. The OTI Festival was held for first time on 25 November 1972 at the of Madrid. Broadcasters from 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. This first edition marked the first time in history that broadcasters from so many countries linked together via satellite to participate in a song contest. Following the first edition, broadcasters from 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 and Canada (which had large communities of Spanish and Portuguese speakers), the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (which were Dutch but where Papiamento, a Portuguese-based creole language influenced by Spanish, was the most widely spoken), and Equatorial Guinea (which is a Spanish-speaking African country) took part in the event. In 1992, the festival reached a record of 25 participating countries, which made the 1992 festival the biggest song contest in the world, even beating the 23 participants of the Eurovision Song Contest 1992. Broadcasters from twenty-seven countries participated at least once in the festival, with Chile, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela participating in all twenty-eight editions. Some of the participating broadcasters, such as those from Aruba, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, the Netherlands Antilles, and the United States, selected their entries through regular multi-stage televised national selections. Other broadcasters selected their entries internally. == Hosting ==

The location of the festival was decided following two criteria throughout its history. Initially, the winning broadcaster would organize and stage the contest the following year. Because many participating broadcasters were suffering from political and economic instability in their countries, the OTI decided, just before the 1977 edition, to drop that rule and open a selection process to choose the host broadcaster starting with the 1978 edition, to which all its members were eligible to apply. The 1977 festival was won by Nicaragua, which was not able to host the 1978 festival due to the Nicaraguan Revolution, becoming the first to not be able to do so. The 1999 edition, which was going to be held in Veracruz, had to be suspended due to the severe flooding that occurred in early October in the country, which devastated the city. Spain and Mexico were the countries that hosted the contest the most, with six editions each one. In total, the festival was hosted in thirteen countries, out of the twenty-seven that ever participated. Editions == Voting system ==

The voting system to decide the outcome of the festival changed over the years. Initially, voting was public, with a five-member jury assembled by each participating broadcaster in their country casting their votes by telephone, and the counting being displayed on a scoreboard. Each jury member voted only for one song, which could not be the one representing their country, with the song with the most votes winning, and the second- and third-placed songs usually also being awarded. In 1977 the number of jurors per country was changed to three due to an increase of participating entries. In 1978, the voting was changed so that each country cast 1–5 points to its five favorite songs in order of preference. And in 1982, remote juries were abolished and each participating broadcaster appointed a single juror who was present in the hall instead. Starting in 1983, voting became secret, with only the top three entries revealed at the end. That year, each participating broadcaster appointed a juror who was present in the hall and who scored all entries, except its own, between 1 and 5 points in a secret voting. From 1984 on, the outcome was decided by a professional jury assembled by the organizers composed by well-known music personalities, which was present in the hall and voted secretly. == Winners ==

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

Although the OTI Festival has not been held since 2000, it is still widely remembered in many countries, especially in Mexico, where the festival was always well received by the audience, even when its popularity was declining. It was enormously popular there thanks to the "National OTI Festival", which was the multi-stage national competition organized by Televisa to select its entry for the international contest. Many famous singers such as Juan Gabriel, Emmanuel, Lucero, or the girl band Pandora, tried to represent Mexico in the OTI Festival, but they didn't win the national contest. Both (TVE) in Spain and (RTP) in Portugal were members of the OTI and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), so they were eligible to participate in both the OTI Festival and the Eurovision Song Contest representing their countries. The band Trigo Limpio represented Spain in the OTI Festival 1977 and in the Eurovision Song Contest 1980. Marcos Llunas won for Spain the OTI Festival 1995 and represented the country in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997, making him the only OTI winner to ever participate in Eurovision. Betty Missiego, who represented Peru in the OTI Festival 1972, represented Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 1979. Numerous artists participated in both competitions representing Portugal, such as Anabela, Paulo de Carvalho, José Cid, Dora, Dulce Pontes, Adelaide Ferreira, Simone de Oliveira, and Tonicha. Other well known OTI contestants from these countries were Spanish Marisol, Dyango, Vicky Larraz, and Camilo Sesto; and Portuguese Lena d'Água. Only one Eurovision winner has previously participated in the OTI Festival: Dave Benton, who represented the Netherlands Antilles in 1981 as Efrem Benita, won the Eurovision Song Contest 2001 for , with the song "Everybody" along 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 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 "" (Iberoamerican Telecommunications Organisation) evolving from a television content exchange platform to include members of a broader nature such as newspapers and telephone-internet companies apart from television 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 "" (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 participating countries, the competition was held in the Mexican city of Puerto Peñasco. 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 EBU announced its expansion of the Eurovision Song Contest brand to Latin America. The planned contest would be produced by the same producers of other Eurovision spin-offs, including the American Song Contest. There was no further information on these projects after their announcement. == Notes ==