payola

thumb|Alan Freed was a notable disc jockey convicted of accepting payola bribes.

Payola, in the music industry, is the illegal practice of paying a commercial radio station to play a song without the station disclosing the payment. Under U.S. law, a radio station must disclose songs they were paid to play on the air as sponsored airtime. The number of times the songs are played can influence the perceived popularity of a song, and payola may be used to influence these metrics. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) treats payola as a violation of the Sponsorship Identification Rules, which require any broadcast of paid material to include a disclosure.