Background music in the shopping centre, without Buma and Sena
If you manage a shopping centre, music in 3,000 m² of common areas costs you € 4,758.23 per year to Buma/Stemra and Sena together. With RadioMatic you pay nothing to Buma/Stemra, because the music is made entirely by AI, and nothing to Sena either.
You easily pay
€ 4,758
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
As a manager you choose music for a space that ten or fifty tenants border on. What plays in the arcade is the only sound the whole centre shares. With RadioMatic that is a station of its own and not a relayed broadcaster, so there is no third-party advertising in it. In a shopping centre that counts for a lot. Otherwise a visitor in the arcade hears an offer from a party that is not one of your tenants.
Between the tracks you place messages that matter to the centre. Think of the opening hours over the holidays, the retailers association event, the new tenant opening on Saturday, work at the north entrance or where the charging points are. You type it in and it is there on the next round. For an announcement that cannot wait, your announcement microphone keeps working.
With more centres in your portfolio you run them from a single dashboard. Each centre keeps its own mood, its own messages and its own opening hours. You can differ per zone, so the parking decks hear something other than the main arcade. And because the music is made new every day, your tenants’ staff do not keep hearing the same tracks.
What does a shopping centre manager pay Buma and Sena?
If you manage a shopping centre, you pay only for the common areas. Those are the arcades, the galleries, the entrances and the square. The shops each hold their own licence for the music behind their own doors. So you do not pay for your tenants, and they do not pay for the arcade.
For those common areas Buma/Stemra and Sena both charge by the square metre, and both in their dearest table. Buma/Stemra puts shopping centres, streets, galleries and arcades in the highest category. If the music can only be heard along the frontages, Buma converts the total frontage length to floor area by multiplying it by three. Sena has a table of its own for shopping streets, shopping centres, galleries, arcades, outdoor areas and petrol stations, and comes out higher still there than Buma. For an arcade of any size you pay close to twice what a DIY store is charged, both bills together.
With RadioMatic you pay nothing 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 | € 1,992 |
|---|---|
| Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge | € 2,766 |
| Together per year | € 4,758 |
Sources: Buma/Stemra, mechanical background music, 2026 prices, Buma/Stemra, binding tariff text BUM.129.26/01, article 7 and the examples on determining floor area, Sena, 2026 tariff overview, shopping streets and shopping centres on p. 9, mijnlicentie.nl. Article 7 of BUM.129.26/01 names shopping centres, streets, galleries and malls in so many words in the list for category A, and above the highest bracket a surcharge is added for every 1,600 m² or part thereof. That same tariff text provides that the total length of the frontages is multiplied by a factor of three to determine the floor area when the music is audible along those frontages only. Sena charges in the table for shopping streets, shopping centres, galleries, malls, outdoor areas and petrol stations on page 9 of the tariff overview, with a minimum licence period of one month. The comparison is 3,000 m² of common area against a DIY store of 1,200 m². Amounts per year, 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.
Music for people who keep walking
In an arcade nobody stands still to listen. Visitors walk through, from the car park to the chemist and from the chemist to the exit. The music lays a floor under a space that otherwise consists only of footsteps and chatter. The acoustics make that hard. A covered arcade with a glass roof, tiles and hard walls rings on for a long time, and every sharp attack hangs there for seconds. Calm music with little percussion and few jumps in volume stays recognisable there. Busy music turns to noise.
Your audience is also the broadest there is. A shopping centre serves the fourteen-year-old pupil and the visitor of eighty at the same moment. Music that appeals to one age group drives the other away. What is left is music that takes no side. You build a station like that with a style and a few settings, and not with a playlist someone put together to their own taste.
Per zone and per moment it may differ. On a Saturday afternoon in a busy arcade the energy may sit higher than on a Monday morning. In December the whole mood changes, and that Christmas mood then runs for eight weeks on end. With RadioMatic new Christmas music is added every day in those weeks, in the same style. For your tenants’ staff that is a very different story from the same list on repeat.
It works on the building’s announcement system
A shopping centre always has a 100-volt system, and usually that is also the building’s announcement system. One amplifier room, dozens of speakers in the arcades and on the decks, long cable runs and a transformer per speaker. RadioMatic goes in through the line-in on your existing amplifier. No speaker has to be moved and no extra cable is needed. Where you work with a Sonos, a Chromecast or a browser, the stream plays there just as well.
The zone layout in place stays. North arcade, south arcade, entrance hall, square and parking deck each keep their own source and their own volume, all from the same dashboard. Your announcement microphone and your evacuation system keep priority over the music, as now, because to that system RadioMatic is only the source. With more centres under management they sit under one account with a mood of its own per centre. After your application is approved, usually within five working days, a station is live in ten minutes. The first fourteen days are free to try.
What you can choose from today
Look for music for a shopping centre and you end up with agencies that build a bespoke radio station. Retail Radio, part of Cue Creative, names MediaMarkt and De Hoven Radio, for the shopping centres of Van der Vorm Vastgoed, among its clients. You pay a one-off amount for the set-up there, and then a fixed amount per month. FunkHaus supplied shopping centres across the Netherlands with background music and announcements through Radioworks.
With both of them you play music by human creators. Retail Radio says itself that it gives extensive advice on the music rights at Buma/Stemra and Sena. So as the manager you take out that licence yourself, and that bill comes on top of what you pay for the station. What it costs is set out above.
With RadioMatic your arcades play music that drives away neither the fourteen-year-old pupil nor the visitor of eighty, and the parking decks hear something other than the main arcade. Between the tracks you announce the new tenant opening on Saturday or the work at the north entrance. With more centres, you run them all from one dashboard.
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 in the car park, without Buma and SenaCar parks
- Background music in your office, without Buma and SenaBackground music for offices
- Background music for your co-working space, without Buma and SenaCo-working and flex offices
- Background music in your workshop, without Buma and SenaCar workshop and garage
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.