Definition of "payola" [payola]

• Bribery of an influential person in exchange for the promotion of a product or service, such that of disc jockeys for the promotion of records. (noun)
• A bribe or a number of bribes given to an influential person in exchange for a promotion of a product or service: "I do not mean to imply that most Wall Street analysts typically receive payola for touting particular stocks” ( Burton G. Malkiel). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It costs too much just when we can't even afford everything the government has already bought and comitted to ... it raises the cost of health care ... and it got this far only because of hundreds of millions of dollars in payola to Democratic hold-outs."
• "Apparently other bloggers are more fortunate than I, and are cashing in nicely by offering "reviews" of stuff in exchange for payola from the makers and sellers of said stuff."
• "Anytime I see an article referring to Facebook as an equal to Myspace I immediately suspect payola is involved."