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The OTI Festival 1973 was the second edition of the annual
OTI Festival OTI Festival ( es, Festival OTI de la Canción, pt, Festival OTI da Canção), often known simply as La OTI, was an international song competition, organised annually between 1972 and 2000 by the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI) ...
. It was held in
Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte (, ; ) is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population around 2.7 million and with a metropolitan area of 6 million people. It is the 13th-largest city in South America and the 18th-largest in the Americas. The metropol ...
,
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, following the country's victory at the 1972 contest with the song "Dialogo" by Claudia Regina and Tobías. Organised by the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI) and host broadcaster
Rede Tupi Rede Tupi (; in English, Tupi Network) was a Brazilian television network free-to-air. Its parent broadcaster, located in the city of São Paulo, was the first TV station to operate in the country, being inaugurated on 18 September 1950 by journ ...
, the contest was held at the Palácio das Artes on Saturday 10 November 1973 and was hosted by Walter Forster and Íris Lettieri. With the debut of
México Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, this time 14 countries participated in the event, one more compared to the first edition in which Mexico had been disqualified. It was precisely the Mexican entrant Imelda Miller with the song "Qué alegre va María" the one who won the festival.


Background

According to the original rules of the OTI Festival, the winning country of the previous edition would host the contest the next year. Brazil, which was the winning country of the first edition of the festival with the duet composed by Claudia Regina and Tobías and their song "Dialogo" (Dialogue) was, then, designed as the host country.
Rede Tupi Rede Tupi (; in English, Tupi Network) was a Brazilian television network free-to-air. Its parent broadcaster, located in the city of São Paulo, was the first TV station to operate in the country, being inaugurated on 18 September 1950 by journ ...
which was the national broadcaster of the South American state organised the event under the auspices of their affiliate local channel, TV Itacolomi, in the city of
Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte (, ; ) is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population around 2.7 million and with a metropolitan area of 6 million people. It is the 13th-largest city in South America and the 18th-largest in the Americas. The metropol ...
in the south-east part of the country.


Venue

Rede Tupi Rede Tupi (; in English, Tupi Network) was a Brazilian television network free-to-air. Its parent broadcaster, located in the city of São Paulo, was the first TV station to operate in the country, being inaugurated on 18 September 1950 by journ ...
decided after a committee that
Belo Horizonte Belo Horizonte (, ; ) is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population around 2.7 million and with a metropolitan area of 6 million people. It is the 13th-largest city in South America and the 18th-largest in the Americas. The metropol ...
was the most suitable city in order to host the OTI Festival. This decision was made because of the city's good infrastructure and its readiness for exposition and exhibition purposes. The venue of the festival was the Palacio das Artes, a very modern and vanguardist
auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theatres, the number of auditoria (or auditoriums) is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoria can be found in entertainment venues, community ...
which was built by the internationally famous Brazilian architect
Oscar Niemeyer Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho (15 December 1907 – 5 December 2012), known as Oscar Niemeyer (), was a Brazilian architect considered to be one of the key figures in the development of modern architecture. Niemeyer was ...
and was inaugurated in 1971, two years before the festival took place. The palace which was one of the biggest concert halls in Brazil and Latin America had got a seat capacity for over 2000 people which makes it slightly bigger than the venue of the previous edition in
Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
.


Participating countries

Fourteen countries took the stage in the second edition of the OTI Festival. The publicly financed and private broadcasters from
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
, Portugal, almost all the South American countries and the
Caribbean Islands Almost all of the Caribbean islands are in the Caribbean Sea, with only a few in inland lakes. The largest island is Cuba. Other sizable islands include Hispaniola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago. Some of the smaller islands are re ...
of the
Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...
and
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
took part. This time,
México Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, which had been disqualified the previous year for political reasons made its debut in the festival with the female singer Imelda Miller, who was selected in the "National Mexican OTI Festival" which was the fastuos and enormously popular national final that
Televisa Grupo Televisa is a Mexican multimedia mass media company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish-language content. In April 2021, Televisa and Univision Communications announce ...
, the Mexican national broadcaster organised every year from then on. Other countries such as
Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
also started creating national events in order to select their entrants to the main festival.


Participating performers

It must be taken into account the participation of the well known Spanish celebrity
Camilo Sesto Camilo Blanes Cortés (16 September 1946 – 8 September 2019), known professionally as Camilo Sesto "El Rey del Amor", was a Spanish singer, songwriter and music producer. There are various sales figures for him, ranging from 70 to 200 million ...
who was selected by
RTVE The Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española, S.A. (; ), known as Radiotelevisión Española or RTVE, is the state-owned public corporation that assumed in 2007 the indirect management of the Spanish public radio and television service know ...
to represent Spain. Another important part of the festival was the famous Mexican composer Sergio Esquivel, who was the lyricist of "Que alegre va María" (How happy goes María), the Mexican entry which was inspired by his own wife and provided as a gift to the performer Imelda Miller. Another important contribution was the Bolivian representative, Arturo Quesada, who represented his country for a second consecutive time after his participation in Madrid the previous year. Unfortunately this time, his entry was even less lucky than the previous one.


Presenters

Walter Forster, who was a recognised actor, voice actor, radio narrator and TV presenter in Brazil was the master of ceremonies, along with Íris Lettieri, a well known TV presenter, model and announcer. Later, she recorded the
PA system A public address system (or PA system) is an electronic system comprising microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers, and related equipment. It increases the apparent volume (loudness) of a human voice, musical instrument, or other acoustic sound sou ...
in the
Rio de Janeiro/Galeão International Airport Rio de Janeiro/Galeão – Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport , popularly known by its original name Galeão International Airport, is the main airport serving Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 2019, it was the country's fourth-busiest airpor ...
, for which she created a unique style. As in the previous year, the presenters gave a speech that highlighted the goals of the OTI Festival and the goals of the OTI as a general broadcasting organisation. The speech was given mainly in
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
, with a few phrases in Spanish. After that, the presenters went on by giving short presentations of the participating performers short before they took the stage.


Running order

The running order of the performances was decided just like the previous year in a draw that was organised by Rede Tupi in collaboration with the Iberoamerian Television Organisation (OTI) a few days before the start of the festival. The performance round was started by Panama. The Central American country was represented by Orlando Morales and his song "Soy Feliz" (I'm happy). The host country which was
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, represented by Nadinho da Ilha appeared the ninth on stage while the performance round was closed by the Portuguese entrant Paco Bandeira with the song "Poema de mim" (Poem about me). As happened in last year, almost all the songs that participated in the festival were sung in Spanish except from the Portuguese and Brazilian entries which were sung in Portuguese.


Voting system

The voting system was the same one that was implemented the previous year. The winner of the festival was chosen by 14 national juries which were composed each one of five members, which made a total number of 65 jurors. Each one of the members of the juries voted only for their favourite entry directly connected by telephone. The host broadcaster, in this case Rede Tupi called the TV studios of the participating broadcasters in order to know the choice of the jurors. Almost all the countries gave their votes by telephone except from Venezuela, whose broadcaster
Venevisión Venevisión () is a Venezuelan free-to-air television channel and one of Venezuela's largest television networks, owned by the Cisneros Media division of Grupo Cisneros. History The company's roots date back to June 1, 1953, with the establish ...
had technical issues during the airing of the event.


Voting process

All the participating countries had both telephonical and presential juries. Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Bolivia had presencial juries in the music hall due to telecommunication problems. The rest of the jurors of the participating countries gave their votes telephonically. Due to the initial tie between Mexico and Peru, the presencial juries were asked to undo the tie. Finally Mexico got the victory.


Result

The voting process ended with a tie between the Peruvian performer Gabriela de Jesús and her Mexican counterpart Imelda miller. Both entries were tied with ten points each one. This interesting fact makes this edition the only one when a tie between two competing entries happened. The following entry with more points was the one coming from the Dominican Republic while the Brazilian entry ended in the fourth place with seven points. Unlike the previous year, when five countries were tied in the last place, this year only one country, Bolivia ended in the last position. In order to break the tie between Mexico and Peru, the most voted entries, Rede Tupi, the host broadcaster and the rest of the participating TV channels needed to improvise during the night a superfinal in order to select the winner.


First result


Superfinal

During the improvised superfinal that was needed to select the winner and to break the tie between Peru and Mexico, only one juror from each one of the remaining 12 participating countries was able to vote. Finally, after a tense voting process, Imelda Miller, who represented Mexico, defeated the Peruvian entrant Gabriela de Jesús with only two points difference. After the final result was known, Imelda Miller as the winner of the first prize, took again the stage and performed her song at the end of the show.


Technical issues

While the festival was being broadcast in Venezuela, the audio signal was lost and while the technics of
Venevisión Venevisión () is a Venezuelan free-to-air television channel and one of Venezuela's largest television networks, owned by the Cisneros Media division of Grupo Cisneros. History The company's roots date back to June 1, 1953, with the establish ...
, the broadcaster, were trying to solve the problem the TV station broadcast ambience music in order to substitute the lack of the original audio signal. This technical problem didn't let the Venezuelan viewers see the performance of their entrant and for that reason, the Venezuelan juries couldn't send their votes by telephone as did the other countries.


Audience and impact

As this edition of the OTI Festival was held, unlike the previous one, in the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, where the most of the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries are, the event reached the screens of a much higher number of people and as a consequence the rating figures were higher. It was estimated that the second edition of this festival was seen in total by over 200 millions of viewers, which was 100 million more than the previous edition. Mexico, partly thanks to the success of their national final, was again the country where the festival had more viewers to the point that the country was paralysed during the show. In regards to the participating songs, "Que Alegre va María", the winning song was warmly received by the Mexican audience and launched the career of Imelda Miller in Latin America. Another successful song was the Spanish entry "Algo más" by Camilo Sesto which turned into a smash hit both in Spain and in Latin América.


See also

*
Eurovision Song Contest 1973 The Eurovision Song Contest 1973 was the 18th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, following the country's victory at the with the song " Après toi" by Vicky Leandros. Organised by the Eur ...
*
OTI Festival 1972 The OTI Festival 1972 was the very first edition of the annual OTI Festival and was held in Madrid, Spain. Organised by the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI) and host broadcaster Televisión Española (TVE), the contest was h ...


References


External links



{{OTI Festival OTI Festival by year 1973 in Latin music 1973 music festivals Music festivals in Brazil