How to Use payola in a Sentence
payola
noun- These radio disc jockeys accepted payola to play particular songs.
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Not just by the payola thing, but by his need for attention.
—Jacob Bernstein, New York Times, 30 Sep. 2017
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Let’s spend a moment on the payola theory, just for fun.
—Holman W. Jenkins, WSJ, 25 May 2018
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Still, rolling out a new set of payola demands in the middle of a global pandemic that has working artists struggling to stay afloat marks a new low.
—The Artist Rights Alliance, Rolling Stone, 18 May 2021
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Artist advocate Krukowski describes the offering as a new kind of payola.
—Randall Roberts, Los Angeles Times, 19 Apr. 2021
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If $13 billion a year in payola can’t appease Quebec, the cause is probably beyond salvaging.
—Holman W. Jenkins, WSJ, 22 Jan. 2019
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And since the 1960s, this practice, known as payola, has been regulated by the federal government.
—Billboard, 28 June 2021
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Joi’s recorded performances embodied all the funkiness my little soul had been waiting for at a time when Black radio was pinned under the thumb of payola.
—Longreads, 27 Apr. 2020
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In the label’s early days, the music industry practice later known as payola—paying DJs to play your records—was not only legal but common.
—Bryan Greene, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 Feb. 2022
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In an industry once plagued by payola and still poisoned by cronyism, there needs to be transparency about the Rock Hall process to insure credibility.
—Jon Bream, Star Tribune, 13 May 2021
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The payola-scheming music executive and the police officer who controls the drug cartel are not just grifters but sharky megalomaniacs.
—Jesse Green, New York Times, 15 Mar. 2023
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The line between these two had been continuously blurring through decades of mergers and vertical integrations (and vast amounts of payola) until listeners had enough.
—Danny Garcia, Rolling Stone, 7 Jan. 2022
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The Discovery Mode feature, which is somewhat reminiscent of a payola – currency in exchange for plays – creates an interesting business case for artists and labels alike.
—Jacqueline Schneider, Forbes, 9 Mar. 2023
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Industry insiders, with their truffle-pig noses for sniffing out scandal from the air, suspected more to the story, perhaps involving prostitution, large-scale payola, or a hard-drug racket.
—Amy X. Wang, Rolling Stone, 9 Sep. 2021
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The parents, Singer, and college coaches played a direct role in the scandal, while negligent admissions officials and campus shakedown artists helped create the culture in which sleazoids like Singer and payola parents operated.
—Frederick Hess, Forbes, 12 Oct. 2021
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When embarrassing information or legal threats don’t work, people with power and financial means often turn to old-fashioned payola.
—Ben Widdicombe, Town & Country, 18 Jan. 2019
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For Holter, all the discussion about fractions of pennies, parity and payola, while crucial, is less a concern than Spotify’s power and potential consequences for musicians.
—Randall Roberts, Los Angeles Times, 19 Apr. 2021
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What started as modest compensation shilling for a local car dealer or pizza parlor has quickly become unapologetic recruiting payola in the win-at-all-costs world of college football and men’s basketball.
—Mark Zeigler, San Diego Union-Tribune, 22 Apr. 2022
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Rolling Stone magazine in August published an article alleging payola lives on through independent middlemen who purportedly use cash-transfer apps and corporate accounts to move money in exchange for radio airplay.
—Anne Steele, WSJ, 22 Jan. 2020
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'payola.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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