Background music in your company restaurant, without Buma and Sena
RadioMatic gives your company restaurant a station that swells at half past eleven and drops back at two, with your own announcements between the tracks.
You easily pay
€ 2,158
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
In a company restaurant everything happens in two hours a day, and almost nothing for the rest of it. In those two hours the whole building comes past. That is the moment to tell people something, and right now that usually goes on a sheet of paper on the serving counter. With RadioMatic it sits inside the station. The DJ moments name your restaurant and announce what is on the soup menu today, that there is a Christmas lunch on Friday or that the salad offer runs until the end of the month. You type it in and you hear it on the next round.
The music is generated rather than pulled from a fixed list. In a canteen that matters more than in a shop, because the same audience comes here every day in the same two hours. Your kitchen staff are also there from seven in the morning. For them a list of three hundred tracks has turned into one nagging tune after a month. The style you set stays put, and the tracks are different every day.
On the hour a short news round can follow with the weather and the traffic. You pick which subjects go in. If your canteen empties at half past four, the four o’clock traffic is more useful than the news. Third-party advertising never comes in between. With more locations or more canteens inside the same company, you run them from a single dashboard with a mood of its own and its own announcements per site.
Why does music in the canteen cost more than in the office?
An office, a warehouse and a workshop fall at Buma/Stemra under the tariff for work spaces. There you pay per employee. A company restaurant is expressly left out of it. The tariff text describes a work space as a space without public in which staff work, and adds in so many words that a company restaurant is not one. So your canteen is charged per square metre. That happens in the higher of the two background music categories, where company canteens are named outright. The same people sit one door along, and suddenly the floor area counts instead of the number of people.
That difference is larger than most companies expect. For an open-plan office with a few dozen people the bill stays modest. Those same people in a canteen of a few hundred square metres cost well over double between them, for a space where they sit two hours a day. Sena does the same and has a table of its own for canteens that also charges on floor area. Does the canteen play the same music from the same source as elsewhere in the building? Then ask how the floor areas are added up, before you declare anything. How both bills are built up is set out on music licence costs.
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 | € 1,138 |
|---|---|
| Sena, including the RAAP-PPI surcharge | € 1,020 |
| Together per year | € 2,158 |
Sources: Buma/Stemra, binding tariff text for work spaces BUM.132.26/01 for the definition that excludes the company restaurant, the binding tariff text for mechanical background music BUM.129.26/01, article 7 and article 8, the mechanical background music tariff sheet BUM.413.26/01, which lists company canteens under category A, and Sena, 2026 tariff overview, page 10, table Bedrijfsrestaurants / kantines / recreatiezalen. The category A scale runs by floor area up to 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1,600 m², and the Sena scale follows the same lines. The work spaces tariff, by contrast, charges by FTE, up to 10, 25, 50, 100 and 200. 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.
Which music works at lunch, and which outside it?
Acoustically a company restaurant is an awkward space. Hard floor, a lot of glass, long tables and a serving area with trays and cutlery. Between twelve and half past one hundreds of people sit there talking, and then it gets loud by itself. Music then does little for the atmosphere, but a lot for the sound in the room. A slightly higher tempo and a clear pulse make the noise less messy and stuttering. Then nobody at the table has to shout across four chairs. In that half hour, too soft is as uncomfortable as too loud, because then all you hear is cutlery and the till.
Outside those two hours it is a different space. At half past ten three people sit there with a coffee and a laptop, and at three the cleaning starts. Something calmer fits there, with less dynamics and a lower volume. In practice the switching over is what goes wrong, because nobody behind the serving counter has time at two o’clock to pick another list. With RadioMatic you set it per part of the day and it happens by itself. That goes for the announcements you want played only during lunch as well.
A coffee corner or a seating area next to the canteen often asks for something different from the main hall. You put that in as a separate zone with a mood of its own, from the same dashboard. With several canteens inside the same company, every site can keep its own rhythm and its own announcements.
On the installation already in place
In nearly every company restaurant there are already ceiling speakers, often on a 100-volt system that is also used for the building announcements. The RadioMatic stream goes into that system through the line-in on the amplifier and the zones you have now stay as they are. If you have Sonos, a Chromecast or a media player behind the counter instead, it plays on that. A browser on a PC or tablet is enough to start.
If the canteen shares the installation with a building-wide announcement system, that keeps working the way it worked, because the music is simply a source on the input. If you want to run the seating area separately from the hall, you put a source of its own there. 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 company restaurant and you end up with suppliers who serve hospitality and businesses in general. Synerplay has a page for music in restaurants and also names offices and sports club canteens. Backsound supplies music computers to hospitality, retail and businesses.
With both of them you are playing music by human creators. That means two extra bills, from Buma/Stemra and from Sena. Synerplay says itself that in the Netherlands you need those two licences, and points to mijnlicentie.nl. Backsound writes in its frequently asked questions that you as the business owner remain responsible for that licence. What that costs is set out above.
With RadioMatic the music in your company restaurant swells towards lunch and drops back by itself afterwards, so it is calm for whoever sits there with a laptop at half past ten. The coffee corner or the seating area gets a zone of its own with a mood of its own. Between the tracks the whole building hears what is on the soup menu today or that there is a Christmas lunch on Friday.
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
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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.