OTI Festival 1972

The OTI Festival 1972 (Primer Gran Premio de la Canción Iberoamericana, Primeiro Grande Prêmio da Canção Ibero-Americana) 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 held at the auditorium of the Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos on Saturday 25 November 1972 and was hosted by Rosa María Mateo and Raúl Matas.

Fourteen countries were expected to debut in the festival, but Mexico was disqualified because their entry was considered non suitable for political reasons. Of the remaining thirteen performers who took the stage, the winners were the Brazilian entrants Claudia Regina and Tobías with their song "Diálogo", which was performed in Portuguese.

Background
The Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI) was formed in 1971 as a tool of exchange of news and audiovisual contents of any kind between the active member broadcasters. As a part of those goals, the organisation agreed to create a song competition, the Gran Premio de la Canción Iberoamericana/Grande Prêmio da Canção Ibero-Americana, following the example of the Eurovision Song Contest in order to promote the artistic fellowship between all the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries and peoples.

Venue
The members of the organisation agreed that Televisión Española (TVE) would hold the first edition in Madrid, the Spanish capital city. The venue selected was the auditorium of the Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos, with a seat capacity for over 1500 people. This exhibition and convention hall, which was, at that time, the biggest convention-oriented building of Spain, is located in the Castellana neighborhood, in the central part of the city. The building was designed by Pablo Pintado y Riba with artistic contributions by Josep Llorens i Artigas and Joan Miró. Construction was started in 1964 and was finished in 1970.

Participating countries
The OTI members, national or private broadcasters from Spain, Portugal and almost all the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries of Ibero-America took part in the event. Mexico had initially expressed its desire to take part in the event. In fact, Telesistema Mexicano, its national television station, had selected Alberto Ángel "El Cuervo" as their representative with the song "Yo no voy a la guerra" composed by Roberto Cantoral, but the entry was disqualified because both the OTI and some voices in Francoist Spain felt that the song had political intentions, which made it unsuitable to compete in the contest.

{{Legend|#A4EAA9|Disqualified entry|outline=silver|text=X}}

Format
The first OTI Festival was presented by Spanish news journalist Rosa María Mateo and Chilean journalist and radio celebrity Raúl Matas. The presenters gave an inaugural speech in which they highlighted the main goal of the festival, which was to generate a process of cultural and artistic unity between the countries that form the Latin community. Before each song in competition, they made brief individual presentations of the entrants shortly before the performers came on stage.

The musical director of the event was Augusto Algueró who conducted the RTVE Light Music Orchestra. The show began with the "OTI Theme" composed by Ernesto Halffter. In between the songs in competition, traditional dance groups of the Sección Femenina from Ibiza, Redondela, and Seville performed. The interval act consisted of an orchestral medley of Algueró songs "Penélope (song)" and "Te quiero, te quiero".

Contest overview
The running order of the entrants was decided in a draw, which was organised by OTI some days before the event took place.

The competition was started by Bolivia represented by Arturo Quesada with "No volveré a pasar por allí". The host country, Spain, which was represented by Marisol, performed fourth during the night, while the Dominican entrant Fernando Casado ended the performances. Almost all the participating entries were sung in Spanish, except the ones coming from Portugal and Brazil.

{{Legend|gold|Winner}}

Detailed voting results
The winner of the festival was chosen by thirteen national juries, which were composed of five members each, making a total number of sixty-five jurors. Each one of the members of the juries voted only for their favorite entry.

The host broadcaster, in this case, Televisión Española, called to the headquarters of the participating broadcasters in order to know the decision of the jurors. Almost all the countries gave their votes by telephone, except for Bolivia and the Dominican Republic, whose broadcasters had to send their jurors to Madrid because of the bad state of the telephone lines in these countries.

Voting process
{{Legend|gold|Winner}}

The first winner of the festival was the Brazilian duo Claudia Regina and Tobías with their song "Diálogo", which was the absolute favorite and won with ten points, only two points more than the runner-up, who was Basilio, the entrant from Panama. The third place went to the Spanish actress and singer Marisol, who got seven points. Both Venezuela and Puerto Rico were tied in fourth place, while Chile and the Dominican Republic were also tied in second to last place. Five countries were also tied in last place; Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina were the less favored entries and received 3 points from the international jurors.

Audience
The first OTI Festival was broadcast live from Spain to Latin America and the Spanish-speaking TV stations of the United States. Although Spain and the Latin American countries are separated by a wide time difference, the show was an enormous success which was seen by over one hundred millions of people in all the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries.

Mexico was the country where the viewing figures were the highest, although the country had been disqualified.