OTI Festival 1974 (, ) was the third edition of the OTI Festival, held on 26 October 1974 at the of the in Acapulco, Mexico, and presented by Raúl Velasco and Lolita Ayala. It was organised by the (OTI) and host broadcaster Televisa, who staged the event after winning the 1973 festival for Mexico with the song "" by .

Broadcasters from nineteen countries participated in the festival, seven of them making their debut. The winner was the song "", written by and Nydia Caro, and performed by Caro herself representing Puerto Rico; with "", written and performed by representing Guatemala, placing second; and "", written by Pablo Schneider, and performed by José Luis Rodríguez representing Venezuela, placing third.

Location

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 (OTI) designated Televisa, which was the winning broadcaster of the previous edition with the song "" by 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 of the . This theatre was a highly vanguardist building opened in 1973 with a seating capacity for over 2,000 people.

Participants 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 Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico, selected their entries through their regular national televised competitions. Other broadcasters decided to select their entry internally.

One performing artist had represented the same country previously: Orlando Morales had represented Panama in 1973. Gee Karlshonn was the first female conductor in the contest's history when she led the orchestra during the Panamanian entry.

+Participants of the OTI Festival 1974 Country Broadcaster(s) Song Artist Songwriter(s) Language Conductor Bolivia TVB "" Jenny Spanish Javier Jorquera Brazil Rede Tupi "" Agnaldo Rayol Poncho Pérez Chile TVN "" José Alfredo Fuentes Spanish Colombia "" Luis Gabriel Naranjo Spanish Chucho Ferrer Dominican Republic "" Charytín Goyco Charytín Goyco Spanish Jorge Taveras Ecuador Ecuavisa "" Hilda Murillo Spanish Chucho Ferrer El Salvador "" Félix López Félix López Spanish Chucho Ferrer Guatemala "" Tanya Zea Spanish Roberto Porter Honduras "" Moisés Canelo Horacio Cadalso Spanish Jorge Ortega Mexico Televisa "" Roberto Cantoral Spanish Ramón Flores Netherlands Antilles ATM "" Humberto Nivi Humberto Nivi Spanish Aníbal Abreu Nicaragua "" Hernaldo Zúñiga Hernaldo Zúñiga Spanish Chucho Ferrer Panama RPC-TV "" Orlando Morales and Marcos Rodríguez Gee Karlshonn Spanish Gee Karlshonn Peru "" Spanish Jorge Madueño Puerto Rico WKAQ-Telemundo "" Nydia Caro Spanish Chucho Ferrer Spain TVE "" Lia Uyá Spanish Rafael Ibarbia United States SIN "" Rosita Perú Spanish Larry Martin Uruguay SAETA "" María Elisa Jorge da Trindade Spanish Chucho Ferrer Venezuela "" José Luis Rodríguez Pablo Schneider Spanish Aníbal Abreu

Festival overview

The festival was held on Saturday 26 October 1974, beginning at 17:00 CST (23:00 UTC). It was presented by Raúl Velasco and Lolita Ayala. The musical director was , who conducted the Acapulco Philharmonic Orchestra when required. The competing songs were accompanied by the singing group Hermanos Zavala as backing singers. The draw to determine the running order (R/O) was held on 6 October at the Televisa studios in Mexico City. The interval act featured Imelda Miller performing her previous year's winning song "", and Pedro Vargas performing "".

The winner was the song "", written by and Nydia Caro, and performed by Caro herself representing Puerto Rico; with "", written and performed by representing Guatemala, placing second; and "", written by Pablo Schneider, and performed by José Luis Rodríguez representing Venezuela, placing third. There was a trophy for each of the first three places. The first prize trophy was delivered by Guillermo Cañedo, president of OTI; the second prize trophy by Luis Ezcurra and Eduardo Reina; and the third prize trophy by Fernando Eleta and Almeida Castro.

After the awards ceremony, the winning song was going to be reprised by Caro, but because of how emotionally shocked she was from winning, she was unable to finish singing and stopped to thank the audience for the support. This is the only time in the festival's history that a winning song was not reprised fully at the end of the show.

+ Results of the OTI Festival 1974 Country Song Artist Votes Place 1 Dominican Republic "" Charytín Goyco 7 5 2 Spain "" 9 4 3 Bolivia "" Jenny 2 14 4 Guatemala "" 14 2 5 Uruguay "" María Elisa 4 7 6 United States "" Rosita Perú 1 15 7 Honduras "" Moisés Canelo 3 10 8 Netherlands Antilles "" Humberto Nivi 3 10 9 Panama "" Orlando Morales and Marcos Rodríguez 1 15 10 El Salvador "" Félix López 3 10 11 Ecuador "" Hilda Murillo 7 5 12 Brazil "" Agnaldo Rayol 0 18 13 Mexico "" 3 10 14 Chile "" 4 7 15 Nicaragua "" Hernaldo Zúñiga 4 7 16 Puerto Rico "" Nydia Caro 18 1 17 Peru "" 0 18 18 Colombia "" 1 15 19 Venezuela "" José Luis Rodríguez 11 3

Spokespersons Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective jury in the order of participation via telephone. Known spokespersons at the 1974 festival are listed below. Lupita Oláiz

Detailed voting results 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. 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. 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.

All the countries gave their votes remotely by telephone, except for Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, the Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, the United States, and Uruguay, which used the stand-in delegates. The voting was supervised by OTI representative Amaury Daumas.

Voting process

+ Detailed voting results of the OTI Festival 1974 Voter: Voting countriesClassification scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" Votes Place scope="rowgroup" rowspan="19" Dominican Republic11111275 Spain 1111121194 Bolivia 11214 Guatemala 11111111321142 Uruguay 111147 United States 1115 Honduras 111310 Netherlands Antilles 111310 Panama 1115 El Salvador 12310 Ecuador 111111175 Brazil 018 Mexico 111310 Chile 11247 Nicaragua 111147 Puerto Rico 21111241221181 Peru 018 Colombia 1115 Venezuela 2111231113

Broadcast 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, commentators, and presenters of the local opt-out are shown in the tables below.

+ Broadcasters, commentators, and local presenters in participating countries Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) Local presenter(s) TVN Inravisión Televisa ATM TeleCuraçao TVE TVE 1 José Luis Uribarri

+ Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) Telecentro Telecentro Canal 6 Teletica

Reception 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.

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 Zea 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, "Vuelve" 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.

Notes

References

External links 3rd OTI Festival, Acapulco 1974 at RTVE Play