Mexico in the OTI Festival

The participation of Mexico in the OTI Festival began at the second OTI Festival in 1973. The Mexican participating broadcaster was Televisa, which was member of the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI). Televisa participated in twenty-seven of the twenty-eight editions, only missing the first edition. It won the festival six times: in 1973, 1975, 1985, 1989, 1990, and 1997; and it hosted the event also six times: 1974, 1976, 1981, 1984, 1991, and 2000.

During the contest’s run, Mexico was one of the most successful countries with its six wins, including a back-to-back victory in 1989 and 1990, and fourteen top 3 finishes.

Telesistema Mexicano (TSM) had initially registered for the OTI Festival 1972, the first edition of the OTI Festival organized by the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI), and had selected the song "Yo no voy a la guerra", written by Roberto Cantoral, and performed by Alberto Ángel "El Cuervo", as its entry, but the song was disqualified by the OTI Program Commission because its lyrics didn't comply with the rules of the competition for going against "the idiosyncratic sensitivity or way of life of the Ibero-American peoples". The commission asked TSM to submit a new song, but it did not do so on such short notice.^[1][2]

So Televisa, TSM's successor, entered the contest for the first time the following year in the second edition of the contest. Mexico was the most successful country of the history of the festival along with Spain, with six victories each. Apart from the victories, the country ended in the top 10 on nineteen occasions.^[3]

The first Mexican victory came in its first participation, in 1973 in Belo Horizonte, with the song "Qué alegre va María" sung by Imelda Miller.^[4] Two year later, in 1975, the country won again the contest in San Juan with the song "La felicidad" sung by Gualberto Castro.^[5] One decade later, in 1985, México won again with the song "El fandango aquí" sung by Eugenia León. This was a very controversial victory, which was attributed to the solidarity with the country because of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, that destroyed the capital city.^[6] In 1989 and 1990 Mexico got two consecutive wins with "Una canción no es suficiente" sung by Analí and "Un bolero" sung by Carlos Cuevas. The last Mexican victory came in 1997 in Lima with the song "Se diga lo que se diga" sung by Iridián.

Televisa hosted the OTI festival six times, in 1974 and 1976 in the Ruiz de Alarcón Theatre in Acapulco. In 1981 and 1984 in Mexico City, being the National Auditorium the venue. In 1991, Acapulco hosted again the festival in the Convention Centre, the same venue where the last edition of the contest was held in 2000. Televisa was also going to host the contest in 1999 in Veracruz, but it had to be suspended due to the severe flooding that occurred in the country, which devastated the city.

The Mexican trajectory in the OTI Festival is known for its popular national final, the "National OTI Festival", which was passionately followed every year by the Mexican audience and known by its surprises and frequent scandals. This selection process is usually compared with its Swedish Eurovision Song Contest counterpart, the Melodifestivalen, due to the interest that it created and the big names who tried to represent México in the OTI Festival.^[7]