Brazilian political parties today must submit to the electoral authority their date-requests for free media time for the upcoming year. Following a resolution reducing their amount of free media time, major parties will now get 20 minutes of free national tv time for the year, allocated in spots of 30 seconds to a minute for a total of 10 minutes per semester. They also get 20 minutes of free time at the state level. Smaller parties get half as much time, though before an electoral barrier was ruled unconstitutional, they were slated to receive none at all. (See sidebar for an earlier post on the rejected rule.)
This subsidized tv time is not for electoral purposes, as there are no elections in Brazil this year - these are annual subsidies designed for party building and sustenance. Free media time for parties exists in many democracies, but I know of none where the free media time is also given in non-electoral years. Is Brazil unique in this regard?
More in Portuguese at Folha Online or at TSE.