def METHOD_NAME(line):
    """Try to extract the payload from a syslog line."""
    line = line.decode("ascii")  # also UTF-8 if BOM
    if line.startswith("<"):
        # Fields should be "<PRI>VER", timestamp, hostname, command, pid, mid, sdata, payload.
        # The payload might have spaces, so force split to stop after the sixth space.
        fields = line.split(None, 7)
        line = fields[-1]
    else:
        # Hope that the line was just json without the syslog header.
        pass
    return line