The only people who don't use Payola are the people who can't afford it. ALL artists use some form of it, whether it's Radio, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, etc.
It's still as good as it was but people have a this weird tendency of wanting everything to decline at some point, so they think it did.
I always give the show the benefit of the doubt, but I definitely have felt a slow in plot progression lately. Season 5 was definitely the weakest so far.
such a dumb post.
