Background music for your bookshop, without Buma and Sena
RadioMatic gives your bookshop a station of its own that stays quiet enough to read in, with your own announcements between the tracks, and you pay nothing to Buma/Stemra and Sena.
You easily pay
€ 932
a year to Buma/Stemra and Sena
If you play music in your business, this bill is compulsory. The amount is the base rate for the worked example below, and your music subscription comes on top of it.
Work out what you pay nowWith RadioMatic you pay
€ 29.99
per location per month, billed yearly
= € 360 a year, everything included
The Starter plan, excluding VAT. No payment is due to Buma/Stemra or Sena, so this is the whole amount. There is a free plan as well.
Fourteen days free to try. Monthly billing is available and costs 20% more, and only then can you cancel monthly. Once your application is approved, usually within five working days, your station is live in ten minutes.
What else you get
A bookshop always has something to announce. An author is coming to sign, the reading group meets next Tuesday, the new translation is at the front, and from the middle of November it is gift season for two months. At the moment that hangs on a sheet of paper by the door. With RadioMatic the DJ moments say it between the tracks, naming your shop, in the voice you pick. You type the text in and it is there on the next round. You do not need a studio or a voice actor for it.
On the hour a short bulletin can follow with local news, the weather and the traffic, and you decide which subjects come up in it. For a shop people come to in order to read, that is a different kind of sound from a commercial. Third-party advertising never comes in between with us anyway, so no commercial plays for an online shop selling the same book more cheaply. Want everything that speaks switched off during a talk or a signing, then that is one slider.
A bookshop of 300 m² is almost never one space. There is a children’s section where it can be louder, a literature corner where people stand still reading and often a second floor or a reading table. With RadioMatic you give every corner a mood of its own from one dashboard, and with more branches every shop keeps its own settings under one account. The music is also generated rather than pulled from a fixed list, which matters most for the bookseller who stands in it five days a week.
Why does Sena not look at the floor of a bookshop?
Buma/Stemra charges a bookshop under the shop category and looks only at your floor area, in brackets. Sena charges the same shop as general retail, and there square metres do not count. Sena counts the staff who hear the music. So you can have the largest floor on the high street and still pay less at Sena than the butcher round the corner. That shop has a quarter of your metres, but twice as many people.
If you have several floors, the money sits in one choice. If the same music from the same source plays everywhere, the floor areas are added together into one bracket. If the children’s section plays something different from downstairs, you pay for each space separately. Two spaces that each land in the next bracket up cost more together than your whole floor in one bracket. If you have a coffee corner where people drink something on the spot, the hospitality tariff can apply to that part instead of the shop tariff. Ask about that in writing and keep the answer.
With RadioMatic no payment is due to Buma/Stemra or Sena, because the music is generated entirely by AI and there are therefore no rights holders. Buma/Stemra itself states that works made entirely by AI without a human creative contribution do not qualify for copyright or payment. The same applies to Sena. The law requires a phonogram released for commercial purposes, and on that ground Sena lost in court in 2025. The full reasoning is in our legal memorandum.
| Buma/Stemra | € 569 |
|---|---|
| Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge | € 363 |
| Together per year | € 932 |
Sources: Buma/Stemra, mechanical background music, binding tariff text BUM.129.26/01, article 7 and article 8, and Sena, 2026 tariff overview, page 8, table Verkoopruimtes I, algemene detailhandel. The category B scale runs by floor area up to 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1,600 m². The Sena scale runs by staff up to 5, 10, 25 and 50. Article 8 of BUM.129 provides that floor areas are added together where the same music from the same source plays in different spaces, and that you pay for each space separately where different music plays. Amounts per year and base tariff, Buma/Stemra excluding VAT, Sena exempt from VAT and here including the RAAP-PPI surcharge of 26.6%. Details of other providers from their own sites, consulted on 23 September 2026.
Work out what you save on your current licence.
Slide in your situation and you will see what you currently pay in music rights every year. That amount disappears, on top of what you save on your current music subscription.
What music suits a bookshop?
A bookshop is the only shop where customers stand and read. Someone trying the first page of a novel reads it with a voice in his head, and a song with an intelligible lyric goes straight through that. That is why music without prominent vocals works better in a bookshop than the radio. And music with a flat volume curve works better than something that spikes every minute and a half. What you want is a sound that fills the quiet of the building without having an opinion of its own.
At the same time a bookshop should not sound like a library. Complete silence turns every conversation at the till into a public announcement, and every footstep on the stairs into an event. A soft, continuous layer makes the building calmer rather than quieter. In the children’s section it can be half a step brighter and a little louder, because there is already talking, running and reading aloud going on there.
In December the shop changes character. It fills up, people are looking for presents instead of something for themselves, and there is almost always a queue at the wrapping table. The music can become a good deal fuller and warmer then, for six weeks, and go back afterwards. With RadioMatic you set that per period and per part of the day, and because the music is generated rather than pulled from a fixed list your staff do not hear the same track twenty times in those six weeks.
It runs on the installation already in place
RadioMatic is a stream and it comes in on what you use now. In a bookshop of 300 m² there is usually an amplifier with ceiling speakers already, often with two or three zones. Those stay as they are. The stream goes into the system through the line-in and you keep the zones you have. If there is only a Sonos by the till or a Chromecast on the installation, it plays on that. A browser on the PC behind the counter is enough to start.
If you want a mood of its own in the children’s section or on the first floor, you put a source of its own there and set both from the same dashboard. For the reading table you can keep the volume lower or switch off everything that speaks. After your application is approved, usually within five working days, your station is live in ten minutes. The first fourteen days are free.
What you can choose from today
Look for music for your bookshop and you end up with suppliers who serve retail as a whole. Synerplay supplies a business music service and names boutiques, supermarkets and department stores. IMPAQT Media supplies background music for shops, with a box of its own that connects to your sound installation.
With both of them you are playing music by human creators. That means two extra bills, from Buma/Stemra and from Sena. Synerplay says itself that you arrange those two licences yourself, directly with those organisations through mijnlicentie.nl. What that costs is set out above.
With RadioMatic you keep the literature corner and the reading table soft, while the children’s section can be brighter and a little louder. Between the tracks you announce the signing or the reading group, and for December you set a fuller, warmer mood. During a talk you switch off everything that speaks.
Why RadioMatic is something other than a playlist or the radio
A business owner who wants music on the premises usually picks from three things. A playlist from a streaming service, an ordinary radio station, or a royalty-free music package. This is where they differ.
| Playlist | Ordinary radio | Royalty-free | RadioMatic | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New music | Fixed list | Yes, but not your choice | Limited catalogue | New every day |
| Music that is yours alone | No | No | No | Yes, your own hits |
| Fits the time of day | Switch it yourself | No | Switch it yourself | Automatic |
| Names your business | No | No | No | Yes |
| Your own offers | No | Only if you buy advertising | No | Yes, with no studio |
| Local news and weather | No | Yes, the station’s | No | Yes, your town, your choice of topics |
| Other people’s adverts | No | Yes | No | No |
| Buma/Stemra and Sena | Payable | Payable | See the terms | Not payable |
New music every day
The station keeps getting new tracks in the same style, because the music is generated rather than drawn from a fixed list. A track that lands well with your audience comes round more often, and then it is your hit. It was made for your station and plays nowhere else.
It names your business
Between the tracks, DJ voices announce what is going on at your place. Your offer, your opening hours, this week’s deal. That used to need a studio and a voice actor.
It moves with the day
The morning, the rush and the last hour each call for something different. That is set per part of the day and happens by itself, with nobody behind the counter picking a new list.
Local news if you want it
A short bulletin on the hour about your own town, with the weather and the traffic alongside. You choose which subjects you want, or you switch it off entirely.
No one else’s advertising
On an ordinary station the business down the road advertises in between your tracks. With us, nothing comes in between that is not yours.
Every location from one screen
Each site keeps its own mood, its own promotions and its own opening hours, and you run them all from the same place.
A playlist is worn out within two weeks, and on an ordinary station the business down the road advertises in between your tracks. With us the station is yours. Your style, your announcements, and the tracks that land with your audience come round more often.
Questions that come with this
Other kinds of business
- Background music for your pet shop, without Buma and SenaBackground music for specialist pet shops
- Background music for your optician’s shop, without Buma and SenaBackground music for opticians
- Background music for your bakery, without Buma and SenaBackground music for bakeries
- Background music for your butcher’s shop, without Buma and SenaBackground music for butchers
Ready to hear it for yourself?
Request access to the beta. Your own station for your business, 14 days free trial, and monthly cancellation if you pay monthly.