OTI Festival 1973

The OTI Festival 1973 (Portuguese: Segundo Grande Prêmio da Canção Ibero-Americana, Spanish: Segundo Gran Premio de la Canción Iberoamericana) was the second edition of the OTI Festival, held on 10 November 1973 at the Palácio das Artes in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and presented by Walter Forster and Íris Lettieri. It was organised by the Organização da Televisão Ibero-americana (OTI) and host broadcaster TV Itacolomi on behalf of Rede Tupi, who staged the event after winning the 1972 festival for Brazil with the song "Diálogo" by Claudia Regina and Tobías.

Broadcasters from fourteen countries took part, with Mexico competing for the first time and joining the original thirteen participating countries from the previous contest. Ecuador, who was also going to join for the first time, made a late withdrawal. The winner was the song "Qué alegre va María" performed by Imelda Miller representing Mexico. A tie for the first place occurred at the end of the jury voting, with the entry from Mexico tying on points with "El mundo gira por tu amor" by Gabriela de Jesús representing Peru, and winning after applying the tiebreaker procedure.

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 Organização da Televisão Ibero-americana (OTI) designated Rede Tupi, which was the winning broadcaster of the first edition with the song "Diálogo" performed by Claudia Regina and Tobías representing Brazil, as the host broadcaster of the second edition.

The Rede Tupi hosting committee decided that Belo Horizonte was the most suitable city 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 Palácio das Artes, a very modern and vanguardist auditorium which was designed by Oscar Niemeyer 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 a seating capacity for over 2,000 people, which makes it bigger than the venue of the previous edition in Madrid. Rede Tupi delegated the production of the festival to its local affiliate TV Itacolomi, which staged the event as part of its 18th anniversary celebrations.^[1]

Broadcasters from fourteen countries participated in this edition of the OTI Festival. The OTI members, public or private broadcasters from Spain, Portugal, and twelve Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries of Ibero-America signed up for the festival. Televisa, which represented Mexico and did not participate the previous year, made its debut at the festival selecting its entry through its 2nd National OTI Festival. The winner of this national festival was "La canción del hombre", written by Felipe Gil and performed by Gualberto Castro, but since it was later proven that it had been broadcast on the radio before the permitted date, it became ineligible and the runner-up was sent instead. The broadcasters from other countries also used national festivals in order to select their entries for the festival. Ecuador, who was also going to participate for the first time, made a late withdrawal.

One performing artist had previously represented the same country in the previous edition: Arturo Quesada had represented Bolivia in 1972. The festival featured two international well-known artist, Camilo Sesto representing Spain, and Sergio Esquivel, who was the lyricist of the Mexican entry.

The festival was held on Saturday 10 November 1973, beginning at 20:00 BRT (23:00 UTC). It was presented by Walter Forster and Íris Lettieri. This was the first time that the festival was hosted in a Portuguese-speaking country, so the festival was mainly presented in Portuguese for the first time. The musical director was Ivan Paulo who conducted the 30-piece Rede Tupi Symphonic Orchestra when required. The draw to determine the running order (R/O) was held a few days before the festival. The interval act consisted in a performance by Antônio Carlos e Jocáfi.^[1]

The winner was the song "Qué alegre va María" performed by Imelda Miller representing Mexico. Its performer received a trophy, while its songwriter received two, one for composer and another for lyricist. The trophies were delivered by Guillermo Cañedo, president of OTI; Edmundo Reina, president of the OTI programs committee; and José de Almeida Castro, president of the Ibero-American Broadcasting Association. The festival ended with a reprise of the winning entry.

The voting system was the same one that was implemented the previous year. 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. For the first time, to ensure that there was no vote switching, before the voting segment began each participating broadcaster announced to its national audience the vote of its jury in local opt-out from its studios. All the countries gave their votes remotely by telephone, except for Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela, which used the stand-in delegates.^[a] The voting was supervised by OTI representative Amaury Daumas.

The voting process ended with a tie between the Peruvian and Mexican entries, both with ten votes. According to the rules, in the event of a tie for first place, the stand-in delegates from the countries not affected by the tie would vote to select the winning song from among the tied ones. So the delegates of the other twelve countries present in the hall voted for their favorite song between those two.^[3] Only the country of origin of some of the votes was revealed during the recount.^[4]

The festival was broadcast in the 14 participating countries and in Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and the United States, where the corresponding OTI member broadcasters relayed the contest through their networks. It was also reported that it was broadcast in Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, and Sweden, making a total of twenty-five countries. The event was originally broadcast in color, although many of the participating broadcasters were still transmitting in black and white.

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

It was estimated that this edition reached over 200 million potential viewers total, which was 100 million more than the previous edition. Mexico, partly thanks to the success of its national final, was again the country where the festival had more viewers to the point that the country was paralysed during the event.^[10]

"Qué 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 became a smash hit both in Spain and in Latin América.^[11] He later became a staple of Spanish music in the 1970s all around Latin America after releasing more hits.

• 2nd OTI Festival, Belo Horizonte 1973 at RTVE Play (in Spanish and Portuguese)