Background music for your butcher’s shop, without Buma and Sena
RadioMatic gives your butcher’s shop a station of its own for the shop and for the work area at the back, and you pay nothing to Buma/Stemra and Sena.
You easily pay
€ 985
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 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.
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.
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. In a space where people stand working for eight hours that is not a side issue.
Why does the team in the work area count for Sena?
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. That is where the catch sits. 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.
That is how the Sena bill for a butcher with twelve people ends up well over twice the Buma bill. A bookshop with nearly four times as much floor pays half as much at Sena. 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 radio of its own in the cutting room and that is a second item. At Sena it changes nothing, because everyone who hears the music counts.
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 | € 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.
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 the front and the back of 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. 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 his 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.
The back is another world. There are machines there, knives and saws are used and it is cold. Music has a practical purpose there for the people standing in it all day. 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 zone of its own with a schedule of its own, running before the shop opens.
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
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.
If you want a mood of its own at the back, a volume of its own and a start time of its own, 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. 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 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.
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 a zone of its own 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 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
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- 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
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.