OTI Festival 1973

The OTI Festival 1973 (Segundo Gran Premio de la Canción Iberoamericana, Segundo Grande Prêmio da Canção Ibero-Americana) was the second edition of the annual OTI Festival. It was held in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, following the country's victory at the previous contest with the song "Diálogo" by Claudia Regina and Tobías. Organised by the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI) and host broadcaster Rede Tupi throughout its affiliate TV Itacolomi, the contest was held at the Palácio das Artes on Saturday 10 November 1973 and was hosted by Walter Forster and Íris Lettieri.

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. It was precisely the Mexican entrant Imelda Miller who won the festival with the song "Qué alegre va María".

Background
According to the initial rules of the OTI Festival, the winning country of the previous edition would host the contest the next year. Brazil, which was the winning country of the first edition, with the duet composed of Claudia Regina and Tobías and their song "Dialogo", was thus designated as the host country. Rede Tupi, which was the OTI member in the country, organised the event under the auspices of their local affiliate, TV Itacolomi, in the city of Belo Horizonte, in the southeast part of the country.

Venue
Rede Tupi decided, after forming a committee, 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 2000 people, which makes it slightly bigger than the venue of the previous edition in Madrid.

Participating countries
Fourteen countries took the stage in the second edition of the OTI Festival. The publicly financed and private broadcasters from Spain, Portugal, almost all the South American countries and the Caribbean Islands of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico took part. This time, Mexico, which had been disqualified the previous year, made its debut in the festival with the female singer Imelda Miller, who was selected in the "National Mexican OTI Festival" which was the lavish and enormously popular national final that Televisa organised every year from then on.

Other countries such as Chile also started creating national events in order to select their entrants for the main festival. Ecuador, who was going to participate for the first time, made a late withdrawal.

Participating performers
It must be taken into account the participation of the well known Spanish singer Camilo Sesto, who was selected by Televisión Española to represent Spain. Another important part of the festival was the famous Mexican composer Sergio Esquivel, who was the lyricist of "Que alegre va María", the Mexican entry which was inspired by his own wife and provided as a gift to the performer Imelda Miller. Another important contribution was the Bolivian representative, Arturo Quesada, who represented his country for a second consecutive time after his participation in Madrid the previous year. Unfortunately, this time, his entry was even less successful than the previous one.

Format
Walter Forster, who was a recognised actor, voice actor, radio narrator, and TV presenter in Brazil, was the master of ceremonies, along with Íris Lettieri, a well known TV presenter, model, and announcer. As in the previous year, the presenters gave a speech that highlighted the goals of the OTI Festival and the goals of the OTI as a general broadcasting organisation. The speech was given mainly in Portuguese, with a few phrases in Spanish. After that, the presenters went on by giving short presentations of the participating performers shortly before they took the stage.

The orchestra of the event was the Rede Tupi Symphonic Orchestra. The event was transmitted live via satellite to broadcasters in twenty-five countries, the fourteen participant countries in addition to Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Sweden, the United States, and Yugoslavia.

Contest overview
The running order of the performances was decided, just like the previous year, by a draw that was organised by Rede Tupi in collaboration with the OTI a few days before the festival. As was the case last year, almost all the songs that participated in the festival were sung in Spanish, except the Portuguese and Brazilian entries, which were sung in Portuguese.

The performance round was started by Panama. The Central American country was represented by Orlando Morales and his song "Soy feliz". The host country, Brazil, represented by Nadinho da Ilha, appeared ninth on stage, while the performance round was closed by the Portuguese entrant Paco Bandeira with the song "Poema de mim".

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Detailed voting results
The voting system was the same one that was implemented the previous year. The winner of the festival was chosen by fourteen national juries, which were composed of five members each, making a total of seventy jurors. Each one of the members of the juries voted only for their favourite entry.

Voting process
All the participating countries had both local and onsite juries. Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Bolivia used the backup juries present in the music hall due to telecommunication problems. The rest of the participating countries used their local juries and gave their votes remotely by telephone.

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The voting process ended with a tie between the Peruvian performer Gabriela de Jesús and her Mexican counterpart Imelda Miller. Both entries were tied with ten points each. This event makes this edition the only one in which a tie between two competing entries occurred. The following entry with more points was the one coming from the Dominican Republic, while the Brazilian entry ended in fourth place with seven points. Unlike the previous year, when five countries were tied for last place, this year only one country, Bolivia, ended in the last position.

In order to break the tie between Mexico and Peru, the most voted entries, Rede Tupi, the host broadcaster, and the rest of the participating broadcasters needed to improvise a superfinal in order to select the winner. During this improvised superfinal to break the tie between Peru and Mexico, only one backup juror present in the hall from each one of the remaining twelve participating countries was able to vote. Only the origin of some of the votes was revealed during the recount.

Finally, after a tense voting process, Imelda Miller, who represented Mexico, defeated the Peruvian entrant Gabriela de Jesús with only two points difference. After the final result was known, Imelda Miller, as the winner of the first prize, took the stage again and performed her song at the end of the show.

Technical issues
While the festival was being broadcast in Venezuela, the audio signal was lost, and while the technicians were trying to solve the problem, the TV station broadcast background music in order to substitute the lack of the original audio signal.

This technical problem did not allow Venezuelan viewers to hear the performance of their entrant, among others, and for that reason, the local Venezuelan jury was not able to vote and the backup jury onsite in the music hall was used instead.

Audience and impact
As this edition of the OTI Festival was held, unlike the previous one, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, where the most of the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries are, the event reached the screens of a much higher number of people and as a consequence, the rating figures were higher. It was estimated that the second edition of this festival was seen by over 200 million viewers total, which was 100 million more than the previous edition.

Mexico, partly thanks to the success of their national final, was again the country where the festival had more viewers to the point that the country was paralysed during the show.

In regards to the participating songs, "Que 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.