"graft" (especially to disc jockeys from record companies to play their music), 1938 [in a "Variety" headline, "Plug payolas perplexed"], from pay off "bribery" (underworld slang from 1930) + ending from Victrola, etc. (see pianola).
n. a bribe. (Originally a bribe paid to a disk jockeyby record producers to get extra attention for their records.) : The announcer was fired for taking payola.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition. Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Example sentences
Oh, yes there were periodic payola hearings which were quite lame efforts at reforming the medium.
Maybe this deserves a closer look for payola than it got back then.
They say that they don't influence sales, that there's no payola, that there's no influence on content.