OTI Festival 1977

OTI Festival 1977 (Sexto Gran Premio de la Canción Iberoamericana, Sexto Grande Prêmio da Canção Ibero-Americana) was the sixth edition of the annual OTI Festival. It took place in Madrid, Spain, following the country's victory at the 1976 contest with the song "Canta cigarra" by María Ostiz. Organised by the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI) and host broadcaster Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE), the contest was held at the Centro Cultural de la Villa de Madrid on Saturday 12 November 1977 and was hosted by Mari Cruz Soriano and Miguel de los Santos (broadcaster).

In this edition of the contest, the number of participating countries experienced a new record of twenty-one competing entries selected by their participating broadcasters. The winner was the Nicaraguan entrant Eduardo "Guayo" González with the song "Quincho Barrilete", known for the social content of the lyrics.

Background
According to the rules of the OTI Festival then, the winning broadcaster participant of the previous year would organise the contest the following year. In this case Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE) with the song "Canta cigarra", performed by María Ostiz, was the winner of the previous year's edition.

So, top members of the public company arranged a meeting in order to decide the day, the city and the venue where the contest would be held. As with the inaugural edition also held in Spain, Madrid was announced as the host city due to its notable infrastructure and experience in hosting international expositions and also because of the growing reputation of the Spanish capital as a tourist hub.

This edition of the festival was notable for taking place in the newly democratic Spain led by Adolfo Suárez. RTVE used this edition of the contest in order to exhibit the changes of the new era.

Venue
Unlike the inaugural edition, in which the contest was held at the Palacio de Exposiciones y Congresos auditorium, this sixth edition was held at the Centro Cultural de la Villa de Madrid. This theatre is located under the Jardines del Descubrimiento park in the centre of Madrid. The construction of this building started in 1973 and was finished in May 1977, a few months before the OTI Festival was held there.

Since this cultural centre was opened, it has hosted expositions of various nature, from music performances to art exhibitions, all of which are mainly related to Latin American culture. The main hall of the cultural centre, where this edition of the festival was held, was renamed in 2007 as Teatro Fernán Gómez, as an homage to the deceased popular actor Fernando Fernán Gómez.

The stage of this sixth show of the OTI Festival had a triangular shape and a light blue color with some metallic elements on top and the OTI logo in one of the corners. As usual, this stage was divided in two parts, the orchestral one and the central one, where the competing singers and bands gave their performances.

Participating countries
The number of participating countries reached a new record of twenty-one delegations from different Ibero-American countries, breaking the previous record that was reached in Acapulco in the 1974 edition.

As with the previous editions, both public and private television and radio stations that were members of the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI) participated in the event sending their performers and competing song.

As usual, some of the participating countries, such as Mexico, Guatemala and Chile, selected their entrants through live-broadcast national finals in order to select their participants. Other broadcasters with more or less resources, among them the host broadcaster RTVE, decided to select their entrant and song internally.

It must be taken into account that all the Central American countries participated in this year's edition. In fact, Honduras, one of the less-favoured participating countries, which had withdrawn in 1975, returned to the event, and their national broadcaster selected their representing artist and song.

Another interesting fact is the return of Portugal. Radiotelevisão Portuguesa (RTP), the Portuguese national broadcaster also sent a delegation to the capital city of the neighboring country with a well known representative.

Participating performers
It must be taken into account the participation of the Argentine performer Jerónimo, who was a well known performer in his country and who had previously won the Benidorm International Song Festival, also in Spain. The song with which he competed in the OTI Festival had the title of "Jugar a vivir".

The representatives of Spain, the host country, were the popular band Trigo Limpio, with their hit song "Rómpeme mátame".

The Cuban singer Lissette competed in the festival representing the United States with her song "Si hay amor, volverá".

The Portuguese entrant was the well known Paulo de Carvalho, who was internally selected by RTP, as the representative of that country with the song "Amor sem palavras". This singer is also known for his participation in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974.

The Peruvian entry, entitled "Lando," was performed by Cecilia Bracamonte and composed by the popular singer-songwriter Chabuca Granda. This song is known for its fusion of Andean and Caribbean rhythms.

The Mexican representative, as usual, was selected in the Mexican National OTI Contest, the successful national final that Televisa, the Mexican national broadcaster, used to produce every year, but this time, the election of José María Napoleón was controversial. When his selection was announced, the viewers in the auditorium booed the performer when he took the stage as the national final winner. This controversy would later undermine his entry.

Guayo González, the Nicaraguan contestant, sang "Quincho Barrilete", a song addressing poverty, composed by the renowned Carlos Mejía Godoy. The song won the national final despite the Anastasio Somoza Debayle dictatorship.

Format
RTVE presenters Mari Cruz Soriano and Miguel de los Santos (broadcaster) were the masters of ceremonies of this edition of the OTI Festival. After the opening act, performed by the RTVE Light Music Orchestra, they gave their usual introductory speech in Spanish and Portuguese in which they highlighted the main goals of OTI as a media group and of the OTI Festival as a song competition.

When the performance round started, the presenters made brief individual presentations of the participating performers and entries.

Contest overview
As with the inaugural edition, RTVE in collaboration with OTI, organised a draw in Prado del Rey a few days before the event to decide the order of the entrants.

The performance round was opened by the entrant from the Netherlands Antilles with his love song "Gente eres tú" with received a mainly cold welcome by the followers of the festival. The host entrants, the popular Spanish band Trigo Limpio, were the sixth ones to take the stage, receiving, before and after, a warm welcome by the fans and later by the juries.

The Mexican performer José María Napoleón was the seventh to take the stage. This entry suffered a cold welcome from the start due to the scandal that arose from his unexpected victory in the national final. The entries from the United States and the Dominican Republic were the eighth and ninth ones to take the stage respectively. Both songs received a warm welcome by the juries.

The successful Nicaraguan entrant Guayo González and his song "Quincho Barrilete" was the thirteenth to take the stage and was received with high interest due to the deep message.

This year, unlike the previous one, both Portugal and Brazil sent their entries in Portuguese, although the last lines of the Brazilian entry were performed in Spanish, making it the first and only bilingual song of the history of the contest. The performance round was ended by the entry from El Salvador entitled "Enséñame a vivir" which was performed by Ana Marcela D'Antonio.

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Voting system
The voting system followed the same process of the previous years in which the national juries were contacted by telephone by the presenters. Unlike in previous editions, and due to the growing number of participating countries and the resulting greater length of the show, the participating broadcasters agreed to reduce the number of national jurors per country from five to three. Each juror only indicated his or her favourite song among the participating entries.

The national juries of every participating country were contacted directly by telephone by the presenters from the Centro Cultural de la Villa de Madrid in order to know the decision of the jurors, except Netherlands Antilles, Brazil, and the United States, who used alternate jurors located in the auditorium due to communication problems. Venezuela used alternate jurors after attempts to make contact failed.

Technical issues
Although the broadcast of the show to Ibero-America went properly, during the voting process, RTVE had problems contacting the jurors of some of the participating countries, namely Honduras, Ecuador, and Venezuela. As a result, some countries which needed to vote in the participation order were contacted after the rest of the participating countries gave their votes. Although the technical issues were later solved (except those of Venezuela), those issues generated controversy in the green room and in the auditorium.

Voting process
The voting process was tense, but the length of it was much shorter due to the reduction in the number of national jurors. This helped the winner be known in a record space of time. Shortly after the start of the voting process, the United States led the scoreboard, far ahead of performers from the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Spain, the other four performers that reached the podium.

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The contest was won by the Nicaraguan entrant Eduardo Gonzalez with his song "Quincho Barrilete". The song won the festival with a huge lead in points over his Dominican, American and Spanish counterparts which, although warmly received by the jurors and the audience, were not able to win the full attention of the juries.

The Dominican and American performers, Fernando Casado and Lissette Álvarez, were tied for second position with eight points, while the Spanish band Trigo Limpio placed fourth with seven points.

In contrast with previous years, five countries tied for last place, having no points. The Brazilian entrant Lolita Rodrigues and her counterparts from Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica were heavily criticised and didn't receive points from the juries.

Audience and impact
This sixth edition of the festival not only broke the record of participating countries with twenty-one delegations, but also reached a record of audience with a striking viewing figures of three hundred million viewers, one hundred million more than the previous edition. For these two reasons, the festival was considered a success for TVE. The same broadcaster, one day after the festival, broadcast a special program about this edition of the OTI Festival.

The Nicaraguan victory in the contest, its first and only victory, and also the only victory of a Central American country in the event, became a hit in Nicaragua and its success affected both the performer Eduardo González and the song's writer Carlos Mejía Godoy. The lyrics of the song were also regarded as highly representative of the serious problems in Latin American society such as poverty. The song tells the history of a boy known as "Quincho Barrilete" a poor boy who tries to earn an honest living and to save money so that his younger brothers could go to the school in the future. A part of the chorus says "Long live the young people of my homeland," who are a clear example of poverty and dignity. Due to the moving history that the lyrics told, the singer and the author are widely remembered in Nicaragua.

The song "Rómpeme mátame" by the Spanish band Trigo Limpio, who were the host entrants, also became a hit in Spain and Latin America. Although the lyrics of the song were controversial because they described a tortuous and possessive relationship, the fourth place that the band got consolidated their career in Latin America. Three years later, they would represent their country in the Eurovision Song Contest at the 1980 edition. Amaya Saizar, who was then the female vocalist of Trigo Limpio, would also participate in the Eurovision Song Contest at the 1984 edition as the female member of the band Bravo.

The Ecuadorian performer Marielisa also performed a song with a social background which was considered to be a response to the winning song of the festival in 1974 in Acapulco. While the message of the song of Nydia Caro states that songs don't improve the problems of the Latin American society, Marielisa's song, which ended fifth in the contest, states that those same problems must not be ignored.

Despite the shocking and unexpected last place of Mexico, partly due to the scandal that the victory of José María Napoleón provoked, his song "Hombre" became a hit and launched his career, and he is now considered a superstar.