The participation of Puerto Rico in the OTI Festival first began at the inaugural OTI Festival in 1972 held in Madrid and continued continuously until the last edition in 2000 held in Acapulco. Telemundo Puerto Rico, member of the Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana (OTI), was responsible for the Puerto Rican participation.

Puerto Rico, whose broadcaster selected its performers internally, had a promising start in the OTI Song Contest. In fact, the broadcaster always selected big names in order to compete in the event. It won the contest on two occasions, the first time with the song "Hoy sólo canto por cantar" sung by Nydia Caro in 1974. This song, composed by Ricardo Cerrato, was enormously popular and very controversial for being considered an "anti-protest" song.^[1] In 1980 in Buenos Aires, the Puerto Rican branch of Telemundo recorded its second victory in the festival with the song song "Contigo, mujer" sung by Rafael José, which was composed by Laureano Brizuela and Ednita Nazario.^[2]

Apart from their victories, the country managed to reach the top 10 in eight occasions, but from 1983 on, the results of Puerto Rico in the contest started declining, In fact, since then, Telemundo was unable to reach the top ten positions again, until the last edition of the show in 2000, when the country got the second place with the song "Con una canción" sung by José Vega Santana.

Telemundo Puerto Rico, hosted the OTI Festival 1975 after the victory of Nydia Caro the previous year, according to the initial rules of the show. The venue of the contest were the television studios of Telemundo in San Juan. The broadcaster created a colorful stage with a central platform and an orchestra section in the background.

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