OTI Festival 1978

The OTI Festival 1978 (Séptimo Gran Premio de la Canción Iberoamericana, Sétimo Grande Prêmio da Canção Ibero-Americana) was the seventh edition of the annual OTI Festival. It was held in Santiago, Chile, who offered to stage the event after Nicaragua, who won the previous contest, was unable to organize it due the outbreak of the Nicaraguan Revolution. Organised by the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI) and host broadcasters Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN), Canal 13, UCV Televisión and Canal 9, the contest was held at the Municipal Theatre of Santiago on Saturday 2 December 1978 and was hosted by Raúl Matas and Raquel Argandoña. Matas had previously presented the inaugural OTI Festival back in 1972 in Madrid.

In this year's edition, in which many changes took place, the winner was the Brazilian entrant Denisse de Kalafe with the song "El amor... cosa tan rara".

Background
According to the initial rules of the OTI Festival, the winning country of the previous year would organise the contest of the following year. In this case, Nicaragua was the winning country of the previous edition with the song "Quincho Barrilete" performed by Eduardo González, composed by Carlos Mejía Godoy. As a result of that victory, Televicentro Canal 2, the Nicaraguan participating broadcaster, was going to host the contest in Managua at the Rubén Darío National Theatre, according to an internal committee of the company. However, the Nicaraguan Revolution was boosted by the Sandinistas in order to topple the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The outcome of the revolution was a violent civil war which caused a human and economical catastrophe in the country.

Due to this situation of instability in Nicaragua, the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI) decided to temporarily change the hosting rules of the contest in order to find an alternative host city. Finally, the Chilean broadcasters, among many others, offered to host the contest in Santiago. OTI agreed to hold the festival there and the Municipal Theatre of Santiago was announced as the venue.

Four Chilean national television networks joined forces in order to host the festival. Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN), the national Chilean broadcaster, organized the event, together with Canal 13, Canal 9, and UCV Televisión. With the hosting of these four channels, the airing of this edition of the OTI Festival was the first programme in Chile to be broadcast entirely in color.

Venue
The Municipal Theatre of Santiago is a cultural building in the central part of Santiago. Its construction began in 1853 under the presidency of Manuel Montt and finished four years later in 1857. Since then, it was reconstructed several times due to the frequent fires that destroyed it. The building was constructed in French Neoclassical style and its entrance has been preserved despite the frequent fires, reforms and reconstructions. It can seat more than 1,500, which makes it one of the most important theatres in Chile.

It currently houses the Philharmonic Orchestra of Santiago, the Cultural Corporation of Santiago, the Ballet of Santiago and the Municipal Chorus of Santiago.

Participating countries
The number of participating countries was smaller in comparison with the previous edition held in Madrid, where twenty-one countries participated. In total, nineteen participating countries sent their delegations and performers to Santiago. A notable occurrence was the debut of Paraguay, with singer Rolando Percy being the country's first contestant in the festival.

Two countries decided to withdraw from the festival. It was not the first time that some countries decided to withdraw, but the broadcasters always justified their decision because of economical problems or disappointing placings. In this edition, for the first time, some of the non returning countries cited political reasons for taking that decision. Portugal decided to be absent as a protest of the military regime of Augusto Pinochet. Guatemala decided to withdraw the event bitterly disappointed by the previous year's result. In addition, Bolivia, whose broadcaster was preparing its return, decided to rule out because the new military government that emerged from the coup d'état that led to the overthrow of the president Hugo Banzer decided to break all diplomatic relationships with neighboring Chile. Nicaragua, the previous year's winner, had to withdraw from the contest for two years because of the catastrophic situation created by the civil war, which destroyed the country. This was the first and only time that the winning country of the previous year would not participate in the next edition.

As was usual, some of the participating countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, and Chile, the host country, selected their participating entrants through live-broadcast national finals. Other broadcasters decided to select their entrant and song internally.

Participating performers
One of the most controversial performers during this year's edition was Chilean Florcita Motuda, known for his satirical songs and strange external appearance. The title of his entry was "Pobrecito mortal, si quieres ver menos televisión descubrirás que aburrido estarás por la tarde", making this the OTI entry with the longest title ever. His victory in the Chilean National Final was highly controversial because he won with the support of the jurors against the preferences of the audience who supported other songs, including "La tregua" performed by Óscar Andrade who got eliminated in the previous rounds of qualification.

Mexican Lupita D'Alessio won the massively popular Mexican National Final that Televisa used every year to select their entrant. After José María Napoleón getting zero points the previous year, the Mexican entry was acclaimed after Lupita D'Alessio's victory in the selection.

The Spanish entrant, singer-songwriter Chema Purón with the song "Mi sitio" was also well received by the audience and the juries of the festival.

The Puerto Rican performer Rafael José, with the song "Háblame", was also one of the most notable contributions to this edition. He was already a well known name in the Puerto Rican musical industry and he would return to the festival in 1980, becoming the winner of that event.

The Brazilian entrant, Denisse de Kalafe, was also well known in Brazil and her adopted homeland of Mexico due to her participation in many music festivals. She successfully represented her home country with her song "Canção latina" in the Festival Mundial de la Canción Latina, which was held in Mexico in 1969. Seven years later in the fourth edition of the OTI Festival held in Acapulco, she once again represented her country with the song "María de las flores", which was controversial because it was translated into Spanish to attract the votes from the rest of the Latin American countries. Denise de Kalafe, who was again selected in order to represent her country after last year's disaster with Lolita Rodrigues, also decided to translate her entry "El amor... cosa tan rara" into Spanish. This decision was also motivated because of the absence of Portugal, which was, along with Brazil, the only non-Spanish speaking country in the event.

The Salvadorean performer Álvaro Torres, known for his ballads and bolero songs, was also worth noting. Despite the cold reception that his competing song, entitled "Gracias", got, he became a recognised singer in Latin America.

The Colombian representative Billy Pontoni, with his song "Joven", also got an icy reception in the festival, but this shortcoming would not undermine his strong career in his country.

As was the case of the OTI Festival 1976 in Acapulco, all the competing songs were performed in Spanish.

Format
The well known Chilean presenter and former Miss Universe Chile 1975 contestant Raquel Argandoña was announced as this year's presenter. She co-presented the festival with Raúl Matas, a famous Chilean news journalist who had already presented the festival in Madrid in the inaugural OTI Festival back in 1972.

As the presenters used to do every year, after the opening act they made a brief introduction of the show highlighting the goals of the OTI as a media organisation and those of the OTI Festival as a showcase of talented performers in Ibero-America.

When the performance round started, both presenters made a brief individual introduction of the participating singers, quoting the name of the entrants, the lyricist and the director of the Orchestra.

When the performance round ended, the presenters started contacting the jurors of every participating country from the theatre, including the jurors from the host country who were located in the TVN studios. Both presenters also announced the three most voted contestants when the voting was over.

Contest overview
As with the inaugural edition and the following ones, the host broadcaster, in this case, TVN, Canal 13, Canal 9, and UCV Television, in collaboration with OTI, organised a draw in Santiago a few days before the event took place.

The Puerto Rican performer Rafael José was the one to open the performance round with his song "Háblame". The performance round was ended by the entrant from Panama, Roger Bares, with the song "Te cantaré, yo te amaré".

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Voting system
The voting system followed the same process of the previous years in which the national juries were contacted telephonically by the presenters. Unlike in the previous edition, and to avoid the frequent final ties between the contestants, the participating broadcasters agreed to increase the number of national jurors per country from three to seven. The jurors elected, each one, only their favourite song among the participating entries.

The national juries of every participating country were contacted directly by telephone by the presenters from the Municipal Theatre of Santiago in order to know the decision of the jurors, except Puerto Rico, Paraguay, Netherlands Antilles, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic, who used alternate jurors located in the theatre due to communication problems. The jury members of Chile, the host country, were located in the same Municipal Theatre.

Voting process
As the number of national juries increased, so did the number of points awarded to the participating countries. Thanks to this change, the number of points that every country could accumulate was much bigger in contrast with the previous editions. The contestants that ended in the first and second positions were separated only by a difference of five points. Finally, three countries occupied the podium, Brazil, the United States and Mexico.

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The winner was the Brazilian entrant Denise de Kalafe with "El amor... cosa tan rara", a song that reached a record of points awarded by an OTI contestant. This song marked the second victory of Brazil in the history of the festival and also turned Brazil, alongside Mexico, in the second country to get a victory in the contest. The United States repeated its previous year's success with the performer Susy Leman with the song "Ha vuelto ya" who got the second place. The third place was awarded to Lupita D'Alessio, who was considered by the press, the sentimental winner of the show with her song "Como tú". Two countries ended in the last place with zero points, the debuting Paraguay with the song "Cantando" by Rolando Percy and Ecuador with Gracián and his song "Juan el infeliz".

Impact
The audience figures just as happened in the previous year, reached the level of 300 million viewers. The show was acclaimed due to the successful debut of the four participating Chilean broadcasters in the color broadcasting. The quality of the sound system and the stage were also highly valued by the media.

Denise de Kalafe saw her already solid career boosted, not only in Brazil, but also in Mexico, where she found a fervorous fanbase. Her success in that country led her to move to Mexico. She holds the dual Mexican-Brazilian citizenship.

The Mexican entrant, Lupita D'Alessio was arguably the most acclaimed performer and the most remembered one after the festival. In fact, she turned into one of the most recognised female vocalist in all Latin America. Her third place in the contest launched her career in all the Spanish speaking world to the point that she has released more than twenty studio albums and hit songs. Her success in the festival also boosted her acting career in famous Telenovelas during the 1970s and 1980s decades. She also took part in one film during her career.

The Spanish singer-songwriter Chema Purón also saw his career expanded. As a singer, he released five albums after his participation in the OTI Festival. During his career he composed many song for both Spanish and Latin American singers such as the Venezuelan José Luis Rodríguez. He also composed songs for many Spanish contestants in both the OTI Festival and in the Eurovision Song Contest, such as Serafín Zubiri and Anabel Conde (he composed "Vuelve conmigo", which got the second place in the Eurovision Song Contest 1995).

Other contestants such as the Salvadoran Álvaro Torres and the Colombian Billy Pontoni saw their careers boosted.