Background music for your butcher’s shop, without Buma and Sena
RadioMatic gives your butcher’s shop its own station for the shop and for the work area at the back, and you pay nothing to Buma/Stemra and Sena.
With RadioMatic from € 29.99 per location per month, without Buma and Sena. News and your own announcements with Professional. See all plans
What do you pay now for music in your butcher’s shop?
Three questions, and you see what you now spend on Buma/Stemra, Sena and your music service.
How big is your business?
What else you get
Workshop behind, shop in front A butcher’s shop is in large part a workshop with a shop in front of it. At the back meat is boned, cut, minced and packed, and people stand there doing the same thing for hours on end. At the front advice is given and payment is taken. With RadioMatic you give those two spaces a mood of their own, a volume of their own and a start time of their own, from one dashboard. That is something other than one radio playing too quietly at the back and too loudly at the front.
Weekly offers and holiday orders Between the tracks the DJ moments name your butcher’s shop and say what you want. The offer of the week, that there is fresh sausage on Friday, that the gourmet platters for the holidays can be ordered from next week. In December an announcement like that saves you a lot of explaining at the counter. You type it in and it is there on the next round, in the voice you pick. A studio or a voice actor is not needed for it.
No supermarket adverts for meat Third-party advertising never comes in between. No commercial for a supermarket offer on meat, not in your shop. If you want local news with the weather and the traffic on the hour, that is possible, with the subjects you choose. And because the music is generated rather than pulled from a fixed list, the team at the back does not hear the same tracks in the same order every week.
Why does the team in the work area count for Sena?
The cutting room counts too Buma/Stemra charges a butcher’s shop under the shop category, per square metre. With a small shop floor you stay in the lowest bracket. Sena charges the same business as general retail and counts the number of staff who hear the music. Your shop staff and the team at the back are added together. So the people in the cutting room, who never see a customer, also decide which bracket you fall in.
Twice the Buma bill That is how the Sena bill for a butcher with twelve people ends up well over twice the Buma bill. How big your shop is makes no difference at Sena, only how many people hear the music. At Buma/Stemra the floor areas are added together into one bracket, as long as the same music from the same source plays everywhere. Switch on a separate radio in the cutting room and that is a second item. At Sena it changes nothing, because everyone who hears the music counts.
No fees for AI-made music With RadioMatic no payment is due to Buma/Stemra or Sena, because the music is made entirely with AI. Buma/Stemra itself says that music made entirely by AI, without a creative contribution from a person, does not qualify for copyright or payment. The same applies to Sena.
What the law and the court say Sena can only collect for a recording that has been commercially released, and on that ground Sena lost in court in 2025. The full reasoning is in our legal memorandum.
| Buma/Stemra | € 285 |
|---|---|
| Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge | € 701 |
| Together per year | € 985 |
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, which puts a butcher with 12 staff in the bracket up to 25. 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. Also used ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2025:6175.
What music suits the front and the back of the counter?
A chat at the counter At the counter of a butcher’s shop there is talking. How many people, how thick, what goes with it, how long it needs in the pan. With every customer that is a small conversation and the music should not cut across it.
Soft, and fuller on Saturday What works there is a soft, even layer without prominent vocals and without spikes, so that a waiting customer hears something and the butcher can understand every customer perfectly well. On Saturday, with a ticket machine and eight people in the queue, the volume can go up a step, simply because the building itself is louder then.
Rhythm and volume at the back The back is another world. There are machines there, knives and saws are used and it is cold. For the people who stand there all day, music makes working in the cold a little lighter. That asks for a steadier rhythm and a higher volume than at the front, as long as everyone can still make out a warning or a colleague perfectly well. With RadioMatic that is a separate zone with its own schedule, running before the shop opens.
Enough music for December December changes the whole business. The queue runs out of the door, orders are collected, work is done ahead and more people are on the floor than usual. A fixed list you made in November is used up halfway through that month. RadioMatic’s music is generated, so the style stays while the tracks move on. You add your announcements about orders and collection times without having anything recorded for it.
Connecting to the amplifier already in place
Speakers front and back stay You do not have to replace anything. RadioMatic is a stream and it comes in on what is there now. In the shop that is usually a couple of speakers above the counter on an amplifier, and the stream goes in through the line-in. A Sonos or a Chromecast works too, and a browser on the PC in the back office is enough to start. At the back in the work area there is often a set of speakers or a radio that can take cold and damp, and that stays where it is.
A second source for the back If you want a different mood, volume and start time at the back, you put a second source there and run both from the same dashboard. With a second branch or a stall at the market, every location keeps its own settings under one account. You hear back within one working day, and after that your station is live in under ten minutes.
What you can choose from today
Installer or complete stations Look for music for your butcher’s shop and you end up with two kinds of supplier. Muziek op de Zaak is an installer that supplies background music, public address systems and mood lighting, with specialist shops as its target group. Retail Radio from Cue Creative works at the top end of the market and builds complete stations for chains and shopping centres.
Two bills besides the subscription With both of them you are playing music by human creators. That means two extra bills, from Buma/Stemra and from Sena, on top of the subscription. Cue Creative itself gives advice on the music rights at those two organisations. What the bills cost is set out above.
With RadioMatic the cutting room gets its own zone with a steadier rhythm and a higher volume, running before the shop opens. At the counter it stays soft enough to understand your customer, and on Saturday it goes up a step by itself. Between the tracks your customer hears the offer of the week or from when the gourmet platters for the holidays can be ordered.
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 Professional, no studio |
| Local news and weather | No | Yes, the station’s | No | Yes, with Professional, your town |
| Other people’s adverts | No | Yes | No | No |
| Several locations | Set up per location | No | Set up per location | Yes, from one place, each with its own mood |
| Buma/Stemra and Sena | Payable | Payable | See the terms | Not payable |
Frequently asked questions about music in your butcher’s shop
Other kinds of business
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- Background music for your pet shop, without Buma and SenaBackground music for specialist pet shops
- Background music for your clothing shop, without Buma and SenaBackground music for clothing shops
Background music for business. What is allowed, what does it cost and what are your options?
Ready to hear it for yourself?
Try RadioMatic free for 14 days. Your own station for your business, without Buma/Stemra and Sena, and cancel monthly if you pay monthly.
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