The participation of Puerto Rico in the OTI Festival began at the inaugural OTI Festival in 1972. The Puerto Rican participating broadcaster was Telemundo Puerto Rico, which was member of the (OTI). The broadcaster participated in all twenty-eight editions of the festival. It won the festival two times: in 1974 and 1980; and hosted the event once: in 1975.
Telemundo Puerto Rico, branded as WKAQ-Telemundo in 1968âÂÂ1976 and Canal 2 Telemundo in 1976âÂÂ1986, selected all its entries for the OTI Festival internally. In fact, it always selected big names in order to compete in the event. It won the contest on two occasions, the first time with the song "" sung by Nydia Caro in 1974. This song, written by Caro and , was enormously popular and very controversial for being considered an "anti-protest" song. In 1980 it recorded its second victory in the festival with the song "" sung by Rafael José, which was written by Laureano Brizuela and Ednita Nazario.
Apart from its victories, it managed to reach the top 10 in eight occasions, but from 1983 on, the results started declining, In fact, since then, it was unable to reach the top ten positions again, until the last edition of the show in 2000, when it got the second place with the song "" by José Vega Santana.
WKAQ-Telemundo, hosted the OTI Festival 1975 after the victory of Nydia Caro the previous year. The venue of the contest were its own television studios in San Juan. The broadcaster created a colorful stage with a central platform and an orchestra section in the background.