Background music for your showroom, without Buma and Sena
Looking for music for your car showroom? RadioMatic gives your showroom a station of its own that fills the silence in a large, hard space without running over the sales conversation. It runs on the system already in place. Because the music is made entirely by AI, you pay nothing to Buma/Stemra, and nothing to Sena either.
You easily pay
€ 1,216
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 showroom is a large space with few people in it. On an ordinary Tuesday there are twelve cars on the floor and three customers walking around. Silence stands out there, and so does a list that goes the same way every day. Your sales staff sit there from eight until six. RadioMatic makes the music afresh every day in the style you pick. You keep the same sound, without the same tracks.
Between the tracks the DJ moments name your business and the brand you carry. You put in yourself what is going on, about this month’s promotion models, the trade-in offer, Saturday’s used car day, the test drive without an appointment or how late the workshop is open. You type it in and it is there on the next round. Want music only, then you switch the voices off. Third-party advertising never comes in between, so no other brand is advertising in your showroom.
If you have more sites or more brands under one roof, you run them from a single dashboard. Each site keeps its own mood and its own messages. The waiting corner by the workshop can hear something other than the sales floor.
What does music in your showroom cost in Buma and Sena payments?
If you play music by human creators in your showroom, you get two bills, and they are based on two different things. Buma/Stemra charges by floor area. A showroom falls in the ordinary shop category there. The dearer category is for self-service businesses, supermarkets and department stores, and a business where salespeople guide customers does not belong in it. That halves the bill.
Sena charges that same showroom on the number of staff who can hear the music. As a result the two bills go up at different moments. If your showroom moves up a bracket, Buma goes up and Sena stays the same. If one colleague joins, the Sena bill can double while the floor stays the same size. Sena charges the workshop separately, in a table of its own. Buma adds showroom, workshop and waiting corner together when the same music from the same source plays there, and charges per space when it does not.
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 | € 854 |
|---|---|
| Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge | € 363 |
| Together per year | € 1,216 |
Sources: Buma/Stemra, mechanical background music, 2026 prices, Buma/Stemra, binding tariff text BUM.129.26/01, Sena, 2026 tariff overview, mijnlicentie.nl. Buma/Stemra charges a showroom in category B, because article 7 of BUM.129.26/01 lists shops in that category, with the exception of self-service businesses, supermarkets and department stores. In category A the same bracket costs twice as much. Sena charges the sales floor in the table Verkoopruimtes I (retail spaces I), general retail, which steps up at 5, 10, 25 and 50 FTEs, and the workshop in the table Bedrijfsruimtes, kantoren en werkplaatsen (business premises, offices and workshops), which starts from 3 FTEs. Article 8 of BUM.129.26/01 adds floor areas within one building together when the same music from the same sound source plays there, and charges for each space separately when different music plays. 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.
What music works in a showroom of glass and steel?
Glass, concrete, steel and lacquered bodywork throw everything back. In a showroom the sound rings on for a long time and the high notes turn sharp. Music with a lot of percussion and fast attacks turns to mush there. What does hold up is music with a calm tempo, few jumps in volume and a restrained low end. Play it at a volume that fills the space without bouncing back. Many small speakers at a low volume sound better here than a few loud ones.
In this trade the sales conversation is about large amounts and takes a long time. Customer and salesperson sit at a table with a configurator between them, and sums are being done. The music belongs underneath that. You do not want someone to have to repeat a sentence halfway through a calculation. Vocals that ask for attention work against you here, certainly in a space where the sound already goes in all directions.
In the waiting corner by the workshop sits a different customer in a different mood. He waits there for an hour for his car, with a cup of coffee. What fits there is closer to a waiting room than to a sales floor, calmer and more even. On a Saturday the showroom may sound a bit fuller and warmer than on a quiet weekday morning, and you set that by part of the day.
It works on the system already in place
In a showroom of this size there is almost always a 100-volt system, with speakers high in the ceiling or on the structure, one amplifier and a transformer per speaker. That is built for long cable runs and many connections. RadioMatic goes in there through the line-in on the existing amplifier. You do not have to replace anything and no extra cable is needed. Sonos, Chromecast and a browser on the sales manager’s PC work too.
The zones on that system stay as they are. If you want the workshop and the waiting corner to sound different from the floor, you put a source of its own there and run everything from the same dashboard. With several sites every location gets a mood of its own under one account. 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 your showroom and you end up with providers who serve shops in general. BCM Music Systems has a page for retail and names the showroom on it in so many words. Xenox supplies X-RADIO, with a soundboard for playing your own messages in the shop.
With both of them you play music by human creators. BCM says itself that it arranges the reproduction rights for you, and that you still have to arrange the public performance rights yourself. That fee depends on the number of square metres in which the music plays. Xenox says nothing about it itself. The Buma/Stemra and Sena bill therefore comes on top of your subscription. What it costs is set out above.
With RadioMatic the music fills your showroom without bouncing off glass and lacquer, and stays underneath the conversation at the table with the configurator. The customer who waits an hour for his car in the waiting corner, with a cup of coffee, gets a calmer mood of his own. Between the tracks he hears about Saturday’s used car day or the test drive without an appointment.
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 garden centre, without Buma and SenaGarden centre and plant centre
- Background music for your clothing shop, without Buma and SenaBackground music for clothing shops
- Background music for your bookshop, without Buma and SenaBackground music for bookshops
- Background music for your pet shop, without Buma and SenaBackground music for specialist pet shops
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.