OTI Festival 1974

OTI Festival 1974 (Spanish: Tercer Gran Premio de la Canción Iberoamericana, Portuguese: Terceiro Grande Prêmio da Canção Ibero-Americana) was the third edition of the OTI Festival, held on 26 October 1974 at the Teatro Juan Ruiz de Alarcón of the Centro de Convenciones in Acapulco, Mexico, and presented by Raúl Velasco and Lolita Ayala. It was organised by the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI) and host broadcaster Televisa, who staged the event after winning the 1973 festival for Mexico with the song "Que alegre va María" by Imelda Miller.

Broadcasters from nineteen countries participated in the festival, seven of them making their debut. The winner was the song "Hoy canto por cantar" performed by Nydia Caro representing Puerto Rico, with "Yo soy" by Tania Zea representing Guatemala placing second, and "Vuélvete" by José Luis Rodríguez representing Venezuela placing third.

According to the rules of the OTI Festival at the time, the winning broadcaster of the previous edition would host the festival the following year. The Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI) designated Televisa, which was the winning broadcaster of the previous edition with the song "Que alegre va María" by Imelda Miller representing Mexico, as the host broadcaster of the 1974 edition.

The broadcaster staged the event in Acapulco, instead of Mexico City, as was initially planned. The venue selected was the Teatro Juan Ruiz de Alarcón of the Centro de Convenciones. This theatre was a highly vanguardist building opened in 1973 with a seating capacity for over 2,000 people.^[1]

Broadcasters from nineteen countries participated in this edition of the OTI Festival. The OTI members, public or private broadcasters from Spain, and eighteen Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries of Ibero-America signed up for the festival. From the countries that participated in the previous edition, Argentina and Portugal decided to withdraw, while seven countries made their debut: Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Netherlands Antilles, and the United States. This caused the number of participants to increase from 14 to 19 countries in one year.

Some of the participating broadcasters, such as those representing Chile, Guatemala, and Mexico, selected their entries through their regular national selections. Other broadcasters decided to select their entry internally.^[2][3]

The festival was held on Saturday 26 October 1974. It was presented by Raúl Velasco and Lolita Ayala. The musical director was Jesús Rodriguez de Hijar who conducted the Acapulco Philharmonic Orchestra when required. The draw to determine the running order (R/O) was held a few days before the festival. The opening act featured Imelda Miller performing her previous year's winning song "Que alegre va María".

The winner was the song "Hoy canto por cantar" performed by Nydia Caro representing Puerto Rico, with "Yo soy" by Tania Zea representing Guatemala placing second, and "Vuélvete" by José Luis Rodríguez representing Venezuela placing third.^[5] The festival ended with a reprise of the winning entry.

Each participating broadcaster assembled a national jury located in its respective country, composed of five members each. Each juror gave one vote to its favorite entry and could not vote for the entry representing its own country. Each participating broadcaster had also a delegate present in the hall to stand in for its jury if it was not receiving the event live, or in case of communication failure during the broadcast or voting.

The festival was broadcast in the 19 participating countries, where the corresponding OTI member broadcasters relayed the contest through their networks after receiving it live via satellite.

Known details on the broadcasts of the festival in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.

The festival maintained the viewing figures of the previous year with 200 million potential viewers and Mexico was, again, thanks to its national final, the country where the number of viewers was higher, to the point that Acapulco, the host city, and the whole country was at a standstill due to the enormous interest shown by the public.

The victory of Puerto Rico in the festival was completely unexpected and controversial. The lyrics of the song were against the popular protest songs that filled the Latin American airwaves. That song criticized the protest songs for being repetitive and for not offering real solutions to the problems that many Latin Americans had to suffer every day.^[10]

Nydia Caro, after her victory, was given a hero's welcome upon her arrival to San Juan and was received by a huge crowd of people at the airport. Regardless of the controversial message of her song, her entry became an enormous hit in all of Latin America and launched the international career of the singer. Because of the growing success, she became an ambassador of her country, making her successful show, and appearing on television shows around the world.

The song "Yo soy" by Tanya Zae became remembered as one of the greatest songs that received 2nd place in any of the OTI Festivals, and one of the greatest from Central America until Nicaragua was able to win the 1977 OTI in Madrid, Spain.

The song of the third-placed singer, "Vuélvete" by José Luis Rodríguez, also became a hit both in Latin America and Spain. Not only did participating in the festival contribute to his success, but he later on would become both a jury member and special guest singer for the OTI Festival. Since then, his career experienced a rise to the point that he became and still is to this day one of the biggest names in the Latin music industry, still singing even as he's entering his 80's.