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A curated background music service for supermarkets, grocery stores and convenience retail. Built for operators who know that supermarket audio is not retail audio: the shopper enters with a list and a deadline, and the music must support efficient flow without shortening the visit to the point where average basket drops.
From £12.99$16.99€14.99 per month.
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Single supermarket or convenience store? The plan above is ready, activate in two minutes.
Chain operator or franchise network? Write to sales@mycorporateradio.com for a multi-location quote.
In fashion retail, music supports browsing and helps extend dwell time. In restaurants, music supports dining and modulates table turnover. In a supermarket, the shopper has a list and wants to get home. The music is working against a customer who is already in a hurry, and yet the research shows that slowing them down actually grows the basket. That contradiction is the entire design problem.
Most supermarket shoppers complete their visit in 20 to 35 minutes. They enter knowing roughly what they want, they follow a pattern across the aisles, they checkout and leave. Unlike a fashion shopper who may wander in for inspiration, the supermarket shopper is solving a weekly logistics problem. Any music that pulls attention away from that task is counter-productive. Any music that accelerates the shopper beyond their natural pace reduces the number of products they notice along the route. The goal of supermarket audio is not to entertain the shopper, it is to hold them at a slightly slower pace than they would walk in silence, without ever making them consciously notice that the music is there.
This is one of the hardest briefs in commercial audio. The music cannot be exciting, or the shopper will feel rushed. It cannot be too relaxing, or the shopper will feel the environment is not serious. It cannot have memorable melodic hooks, or the shopper attention drifts to the track instead of the shelf. It cannot have lyrics that trigger emotional association, because shopping is a rational task and music with strong emotional content makes rational decisions harder. The music must sit in a very narrow register: present, unobtrusive, rhythmically supportive, and fundamentally forgettable. Forgettable is the feature, not the bug.
In 1982, Ronald Milliman published the paper that shaped supermarket audio design for forty years. The finding was counter-intuitive and the magnitude was striking.
Average spend per visit when supermarkets played slow-tempo background music, compared with fast-tempo music. Shoppers moved roughly 15 percent slower through the store, and the increased exposure to products on shelves translated into a measurably larger basket at checkout.
Milliman RE. Using background music to affect the behavior of supermarket shoppers. Journal of Marketing, 1982, 46(3), 86-91.
The Milliman effect has been debated and refined in the forty years since publication. The exact magnitude of 38 percent is specific to the test conditions and does not replicate cleanly in all supermarket formats, particularly in modern high-efficiency layouts designed to minimise dwell time. But the direction of the effect (slower music produces slower movement produces higher basket) has been confirmed repeatedly in follow-up studies, and it is the theoretical basis on which most professional supermarket audio is still designed today.
The practical implication for an operator is that the music is not decoration, it is an active lever on basket size. A supermarket running a silent environment or a generic commercial radio station with fast-tempo pop tracks is leaving revenue on the table. The question is not whether to have music, it is whether the music playing is working for or against the basket.
A supermarket is not one room, it is a sequence of zones with different shopper psychology. A well-designed audio programme modulates slightly across these zones without breaking the continuous background that makes the whole store feel coherent.
The first 90 seconds. The shopper is entering, grabbing a basket or trolley, orienting to the layout. Fresh produce is typically first because it sets the quality expectation for everything that follows. The music here should be light, neutral, slightly slower than ambient, supporting the transition from street tempo to store tempo.
Slow, neutralThe core shopping zone. The shopper is moving methodically through cereals, pasta, canned goods, pet food. This is where the Milliman effect operates most strongly: slower tempo here means more products noticed per aisle, and measurably more items added to the basket along the way.
Slow and steadyButcher, fishmonger, deli, bakery. The shopper is interacting with staff, waiting in short queues, making considered purchases of higher-margin items. The music here can warm up slightly, supporting the social interaction and signalling the quality register of fresh departments.
Warm, unhurriedThe last 3 minutes. The shopper is unloading the trolley, paying, bagging, leaving. The music here should not accelerate them (the basket is already set) but should leave a positive final impression. Loyalty programme announcements can be inserted here to reach a captive audience at the end of the visit.
Light, positiveSupermarkets are one of the few commercial environments where spoken announcements over the music are a normal operational tool rather than an intrusion. The infrastructure to handle them well is a functional requirement, not a luxury.
In a typical supermarket day, announcements cover closing time reminders, promotional messages on specific aisles or departments, loyalty programme messages, emergency procedures and in-store events. Traditionally these were recorded by in-house staff or provided by a centralised chain broadcast service. Both models have friction: in-house recording is inconsistent in quality, and centralised services are slow to update for local conditions.
My Corporate Radio includes a text-to-speech module based on neural voice synthesis that generates natural-sounding announcements in 14 languages (English, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean). The supermarket writes the message once, selects the scheduling, and the announcement plays between tracks at the chosen moments. For a chain supermarket operator, this replaces what would otherwise be a coordinated production cycle involving voice-over talent, audio files, and distribution to each store location.
In radio broadcasting there is a specific craft called flow programming: the ability to hold a listener through a long session without ever breaking the continuous background of the broadcast. It is the craft most directly transferable to supermarket audio.
The five curated stations are editorially supervised by Emanuele Carocci, a radio broadcaster with over 20 years of professional on-air experience. He works as a host on national commercial radio and leads the music curation team at My Corporate Radio.
Radio flow programming is the discipline of holding a listener across a session that lasts longer than any individual track, by managing track-to-track transitions, mood progression and energy balance so that the listener never thinks about the next song. A supermarket shopper is in exactly that listening position, except they are also solving a logistics problem in parallel. The music must work at the edge of awareness, not at the centre of it, and the editorial craft required to hit that register consistently is a broadcasting skill developed over years of live radio, not a playlist algorithm trained on at-home listening data.
The difference compared to algorithmic playlists from consumer services like Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube Music is substantial in a supermarket context: every track is selected to work in a flow register, without melodic hooks that pull attention, without lyric content that triggers emotional association, with transitions that do not break the background.
In multi-location supermarket retail, music licensing administration scales linearly with the number of stores. Direct licensing removes the compliance burden entirely, which is why it matters most in this category.
| Feature | Consumer streaming (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube) | My Corporate Radio |
|---|---|---|
| Legal for commercial use | No. Terms forbid commercial use. | Yes. Direct license included. |
| PRO fees on catalogue | Separate ASCAP / BMI / PRS / SIAE fees required per store. | None on the MCR catalogue. |
| Multi-location licensing | Separate negotiation per market. | Single relationship covers all stores. |
| Announcements over music | Not available. | AI-generated in 14 languages. |
| License certificate | Not provided. | Issued per store or per chain. |
| True annual cost per store | Spotify £132/yr + PRS+PPL £300-600/yr = £432-732/yrSpotify $155/yr + ASCAP+BMI+SESAC $350-800/yr = $505-955/yrSpotify €143/yr + SIAE/GEMA/SACEM €250-700/yr = €393-843/yr | £156/yr$204/yr€180/yr — all included |
My Corporate Radio operates as a direct licensor of original AI-crafted music under EU Directive 2014/26/EU and in transparency with EU Regulation 2024/1689. Performing rights organisations such as ASCAP, BMI, PRS for Music, PPL, GEMA, SACEM, SIAE and SCF remain the reference for their own repertoires, which are outside the scope of this catalogue.
Milliman 1982 paper in the Journal of Marketing ran a field experiment across multiple supermarket locations. Slow-tempo music slowed shopper movement by approximately 15 percent and increased average spend per visit by 38 percent compared to fast-tempo music. The effect has been debated in follow-up work, but the direction is robust and has shaped supermarket audio design for forty years.
Yes. The catalogue is proprietary and licensed directly by My Corporate Radio under EU Directive 2014/26/EU. No PRS, PPL, GEMA, SACEM, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or SoundExchange fee applies. Every customer receives a written direct license certificate. This matters for chain grocery operators because licensing administration in multi-location retail is one of the most time-consuming compliance burdens in the sector.
£12.99 per month, billed in GBP. Customers in the US pay $16.99, customers in the EU pay €14.99.$16.99 per month, billed in USD. Customers in the UK pay £12.99, customers in the EU pay €14.99.€14.99 per month, billed in EUR. Customers in the UK pay £12.99, customers in the US pay $16.99. Seven-day free trial, no credit card required. Cancel anytime.
No. Consumer streaming terms restrict usage to personal and domestic use and prohibit public broadcasting. A supermarket sales floor is a commercial environment open to the public where music reaches thousands of daily visitors. Chain supermarkets face group-level compliance audits, adding a second layer of risk beyond the standard collecting society enforcement.
Yes. My Corporate Radio supports spoken announcements inserted between tracks, generated by AI text-to-speech in 14 languages. Typical uses in supermarkets include closing time reminders, aisle promotions, loyalty programme messages and in-store event announcements.
Yes. Morning (opening, restocking, older shoppers), midday (lunch break, office workers), after-school families and late shoppers all have different shopping speeds. Curated stations adapt across these windows rather than running a single loop from open to close.
The five stations are curated by Emanuele Carocci, a radio broadcaster with over 20 years of professional on-air experience on national commercial radio. He leads the music curation team at My Corporate Radio.
Yes. No contract, no commitment. Cancel with one click from the link in the confirmation email.
Related guides from the My Corporate Radio editorial catalogue on commercial audio branding across different venue categories.
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