Background music for your fast food outlet, without Buma and Sena
RadioMatic gives every outlet in your chain the same sound and the same voice, run centrally from a single dashboard. Because the music is made entirely by AI, no payments are due 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 fast food outlet?
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
One sound for the whole chain A chain wants to sound the same everywhere. A playlist per outlet does not get you there, because then every manager picks something different. With RadioMatic you set the style once for the whole chain. Every outlet still keeps its own name, its own opening hours and its own announcements.
Deals in every outlet at once Put a deal on the menu board and in the same screen you put it into the DJ moments of all the outlets at once. Large chains have been doing that for years with centrally recorded tapes. Until now that took a studio and a production budget.
Messages per outlet The DJ moments name the outlet and play your own offers between the tracks. You type the text and you hear it on the next round, in the voice you pick. Want music only at one location, then you switch off everything that speaks there. Local news on the hour can be on or off per outlet. So a place in a station concourse can sound different from a place on the edge of a village.
No advertising from others Third-party advertising never comes in between. So no competitor is advertising in your outlet, and no soft drink brand you have no deal with either. The music is generated and does not come from a fixed list. Your staff, who stand there for eight hours, keep hearing new music in the same style.
Does a takeaway fall under the hospitality tariff too?
Hospitality tariff without any seats Yes. A snack bar or takeaway is a hospitality business, even without a single seat inside. That puts you under the Buma/Stemra hospitality tariff and under the Sena table for hospitality background music. That is the most expensive tariff either organisation has.
Small outlets pay Sena the same It surprises owners whose customers are never inside for longer than seven minutes. For very small outlets there is another difference. Buma/Stemra has a separate bracket for the smallest floors, Sena does not. So a cramped takeaway pays Sena the same as a place three times its size.
Paying again for every outlet The tariff applies per outlet. With ten places that same item stands on the budget ten times over, before the subscription and the equipment. And you want Amsterdam to sound the same as Venlo, so you look for one musical line you switch on centrally. If the seating area and the takeaway counter in one outlet play the same music from the same source, the floor areas are added together into one bracket. Put something different on at the counter and it becomes a second item.
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 | € 672 |
|---|---|
| Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge | € 1,280 |
| Together per year | € 1,952 |
Sources: Buma/Stemra, hospitality 2026, tariff sheet BUM.410.26/02, Buma/Stemra, hospitality, binding tariff text BUM.122.26/01, article 7, and Sena, 2026 tariff overview, page 4, table Horeca achtergrondmuziek. The Buma hospitality scale runs by floor area up to 30, 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 m², and above that per 100 m² more. The Sena scale starts only at the bracket up to 100 m² and then runs up to 200, 300, 400 and 500 m². An outlet of 35 m² therefore lands in the same Sena bracket as one of 90 m². Article 7 of BUM.122 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. The tariffs apply per outlet. 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 works in a fast food outlet?
Up against the fryer and extractor In a fast food outlet you are not filling an evening. People order, wait a few minutes and are gone again. The music is up against a lot of other sound, such as a fryer, an extractor, a receipt printer, a screen calling out numbers and people passing on their order. If the music is too quiet, nobody hears it. If it is too loud, ordering at the counter turns into a shouting match.
An even pulse works What does work is an even pulse with few swings in volume. The outlet sounds less scattered as a result, without the music running over the ordering. Late in the evening the crowd changes, and then it can get heavier. The quiet hours between the peaks ask for the opposite. Then it is mostly staff in the outlet, and nobody wants to be kept up to tempo for eight hours on end.
Per outlet or chain-wide With RadioMatic you set that per part of the day, per outlet or for the whole chain at once. The style is fixed and the tracks change. So your place sounds the same tomorrow as it does today, without it being the same record.
Every outlet on the equipment already in place
On the amplifier already there You do not have to replace anything. In most fast food outlets there is a small amplifier with a few ceiling speakers, and the stream goes in there through the line-in. If you have Sonos or a Chromecast, it plays on that. A browser on the till computer or on a tablet in the back office is enough to start. We do not supply speakers and you do not need them from us either.
Every outlet under one account With more outlets everything sits under one account. You see what is playing per location. You put a deal into all the outlets in one go, or only into the three where it runs. The kitchen or the crew room can get its own zone, with a different mood from the outlet itself. You hear back within one working day, and after that your station is live in under ten minutes. That goes for the eleventh outlet you open next year as well.
What you can choose from today
Suppliers for fast food chains Look for music for your fast food outlet and you end up with suppliers such as Mood Media and My Instore Radio. Mood Media lists fast food as a separate sector on its Dutch site, with music, drive-through systems and screens. My Instore Radio supplies a subscription with a discount from three outlets onwards.
Licences are not included With both of them you are playing music by human creators. That means two extra bills per outlet, from Buma/Stemra and from Sena. My Instore Radio says itself that licences for public use of music are not part of the subscription and cannot be part of it, and it points to Buma/Stemra for that. What that costs is set out above.
With RadioMatic your outlet in Amsterdam sounds the same as the one in Venlo, and the DJ names every outlet by its own name. Put a deal on the menu board and you put it into the DJ moments of all your outlets in one go, or only the three where it runs. Late in the evening the music can get heavier, and calmer again in the quiet hours between the peaks.
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 fast food outlet
Other kinds of business
- Background music for your lunchroom, without Buma and SenaLunchroom and sandwich shop
- Background music for your restaurant, without Buma and SenaBackground music for restaurants
- Background music for your petrol station, without Buma and SenaPetrol station and shop
- Background music in the shopping centre, without Buma and SenaShopping centres and arcades
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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