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The participation of Spain in the OTI Festival first began at the inaugural OTI Festival in
1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, ...
hosting it in
Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
.
Televisión Española (acronym TVE, branded tve, "Spanish Television") is Spain's national state-owned public television broadcaster and the oldest regular television service in the country. It was also the first regular television service in Equatorial Guinea. T ...
(TVE), subsidiary of
Radiotelevisión Española The Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española (; ), known as Radiotelevisión Española (''Spanish Radio and Television'', RTVE), is the Spanish national public Broadcasting, television and radio broadcaster. It is a state-owned enterprise f ...
(RTVE) and member of the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI), was responsible for the Spanish participation. Its participation in the song contest was only interrupted once, when TVE withdrew from the edition of 1986, which was held in
Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...
, as a protest against the
Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean military officer and politician who was the dictator of Military dictatorship of Chile, Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader ...
dictatorship.


History

Although TVE selected their participants internally and didn't follow the tradition of national finals started by countries such as
Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
,
Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...
, or
Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...
, Spain almost always selected famous names, most of whom would achieve strong results. Spain won the event on six occasions, in a tie for most wins with
Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
. The first Spanish victory came in 1976 with the singer-songwriter and her song "". This protest song, which transmitted a deep feeling of sadness, was not one of the favourite ones to win the contest, in fact being among the least favoured entries in the betting odds. Ostiz, who thought that she could not win, left the auditorium before the voting process started, but she had to return when her victory was clear. In 1981, TVE achieved the second Spanish victory in the festival, which was held in
Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...
, with and his song "Latino". This song became a great hit both in Spain and Latin America and contributed to launch the career of the singer internationally. Francisco won again the festival in 1992 with the song "¿Adonde voy sin ti?". Since then, the singer started became known as the Latin Johnny Logan because of his two victories. One year later, achieved the fourth Spanish victory in the festival with the song "Enamorarse". The last Spanish victories came with Marcos Llunas in 1995, and with Anabel Russ in 1996.


Spain in OTI vs Spain in Eurovision

Several Spanish entrants in the OTI Festival later represented Spain in the
Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international Music competition, song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster ...
. The band Trigo Limpio which took part in the OTI Festival in 1977 represented in the
Eurovision Song Contest 1980 The Eurovision Song Contest 1980 was the 25th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in The Hague, Netherlands, and was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (NOS), which agreed to stage the eve ...
. Amaya Saizar, who was the vocalist of Trigo Limpio in the OTI Festival, competed in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984 as member of the band Bravo. Marcos Llunas won the OTI Festival 1995, two years before representing Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997. Other artists such as the band Alex y Cristina tried to represent Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1986, but two years after being rejected, they participated in the OTI Festival in 1988 achieving 10th place. In general, from the 1970s till the late 1990s, the Spanish Eurovision fans always claimed that TVE seemed to be much more interested in the OTI Festival than in the Eurovision Song Contest. The followers of the European song contest complained that the Spanish broadcaster almost always selected famous names for the OTI Song Contest, while the Spanish performers in Eurovision were unknown to much of the audience.


Participation overview


Hosting


See also

*
Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest Spain has been represented at the Eurovision Song Contest in every edition since , in total 64 times. The current Spanish participating broadcaster in the contest is (RTVE). Spain is one of the "Big Five (Eurovision), Big Five" countries, alon ...
* Spain in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest


References

{{Music of Spain OTI Festival