Nothing appears more in TV advertising than Nunes and Boulos – 09/29/2024 – Poder

If watching television gives you the impression that nothing appears more in advertising than candidates for mayor and councilor, know that you are right.

Since August 30th, election hours and insertions throughout the broadcasters’ programming have occupied a larger space than that of any product or brand campaign. With the time guaranteed by law, candidates and parties are ahead of the biggest advertisers such as medicines, banks and betting houses when exposed on TV.

In São Paulo, the current mayor, Ricardo Nunes (MDB), dominates this space, with more than 60% of the time, which was achieved through an alliance with 12 parties. Electoral legislation determines that the distribution of time for electoral propaganda is made taking into account the representation of the affiliated acronyms in the Chamber of Deputies.

From August 30th to September 22nd, Nunes had 1,194 commercial insertions on each of the five stations in São Paulo. This was his share on Globo, the TV with the highest audience in the country, which had, in the same period, 463 insertions for food products, 366 for alcoholic beverages, 308 for medicines and 285 for sports betting.

Second with the longest time on television in São Paulo, Guilherme Boulos (PSOL) had 568 insertions, more than company campaigns on television.

The data comes from a survey by Tunad, which analyzes advertisements in media vehicles, to Sheet. According to the consultancy, Nunes’ time since the beginning of the television campaign would have cost approximately R$150 million in purchasing commercial space. Boulos’s would be R$74 million.

The calculation is made based on the amount charged by the broadcasters, considering the times at which the pieces were broadcast and the discounts given in the different programming bands, explains Ricardo Monteiro, Tunad’s operations director.

According to the executive, the visibility that politicians have on broadcasters would correspond to an inaccessible expense for companies. “Neither the bets that advertise a lot today nor the retailers in the past reach this exposure”, says Monteiro.

In 2023, total media investment in open TV was R$25.1 billion, 47% of the total spent on advertising in the country, according to a projection by the Advertising Market Self-Regulation Forum and Kantar Ibope Media.

Free for parties, who do not pay for time on radio and television, political advertising generates compensation for broadcasters, paid for with public money. In 2024, radio and television stations should receive R$566 million for giving up space on their schedules, according to the Revenue forecast.

This discount is provided for by law, and, since 2020, it has generated more than R$11 billion in tax waivers for the use of time in electoral propaganda.

According to the Revenue, “the calculation of the waiver is made using the effective Corporate Income Tax rate multiplied by the value declared by the issuers”.

The way reimbursement is currently done does not please broadcasters. Abert (Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters) demands a change in legislation so that the space provided is paid for with money and not with tax compensation.

The entity claims that social networks can sell advertisements for candidates, which radio and television stations, public concessions, are not allowed to do. In the 2022 election, Facebook raised more than R$123 million from candidate advertisements. Google obtained R$125 million from the sale of keywords in searches and ads on YouTube.

Understand how electoral propaganda time is distributed

Who has the right to airtime on radio and television?
Candidates from parties and party federations with representatives in the Chamber of Deputies that have reached the barrier clause.

What is the barrier clause?

• Criteria used by the TSE to prove the representativeness of parties in the country. The acronyms must have 12 federal deputies or have reached 2% of the valid votes in at least 9 units of the federation in the 2022 election.

What are federations?
Union of parties for a minimum period of four years. The acronyms continue with their number of representatives, but they need to be together in candidacies in the country during this period. Used by parties to achieve the barrier clause and have time during election hours.

How much time is allocated for advertising on TV and in radio?
Election hours are divided into two blocks of 10 minutes each. On TV, they are shown at 1 pm and 8:30 pm. On the radio, at 7am and 12pm.

The applications also share 42 minutes in radio and television insertions throughout the program.

How is the division of the time?
First, the election time is divided between candidacies for mayor (60%) and for councilors (40%). The same goes for the 42 minutes of insertions.

Then, the electoral courts determine how much space each candidacy will have. To arrive at this account, they use the following criteria:

• 10% is distributed equally to parties entitled to the time;
• 90% are divided according to the representation of the acronyms that make up the ticket in the Chamber of Deputies.

Candidacies with more than one party add up to the acronyms?
Yes, but there is a limit. In coalitions with more than six parties, only the time of the six acronyms with the largest seats in the Chamber of Deputies is added.