Unchained Music Distribution passport
- Platform
- Mood Media
- Site
- us.moodmedia.com
To get your music into the businesses and venues Mood Media soundtracks, distribute through Unchained Music. Releases typically go live within 24 hours to 7 days.
Mood Media is the world's largest in store media company, programming the music that plays in businesses across more than 140 countries. Delivery there puts your catalog in front of the curators who build those in store and in venue soundtracks.
Mood Media, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is the company behind the music you hear in shops, restaurants, hotels and gyms worldwide: it serves businesses in more than 140 countries, programs from a licensed catalog it states at over 120 million tracks, and absorbed the historic background music brands Muzak, DMX and PlayNetwork along the way. For artists this is a quietly significant channel. In store play generates public performance royalties collected by the societies, and being programmed into brand playlists puts your music in front of audiences streaming never touches, in rooms where nobody is skipping tracks. Mood's curators program from licensed catalog delivered by distributors, so the way in is distribution. Release through Unchained Music and your music joins the pool those overhead channels and curated playlists draw from.
The same four steps for every release, whichever stores you send it to.
Sign up and pick the plan that fits. Grow is one artist profile, Pro is three and adds editorial pitching.
Audio, artwork and the metadata that travels with them: titles, credits, release date and rights.
Select Mood Media at store selection, along with everywhere else you want the release to land.
A person checks the release before it leaves. It typically appears on the platform within 24 hours to 7 days.
Updated September 2026
Five questions, answered for this platform specifically.
Mood Media is the largest in store media provider in the world, supplying licensed music, messaging and screens to businesses in more than 140 countries. It grew by acquiring the classic background music companies, including Muzak in 2011 and PlayNetwork in 2021, and programs music for retail, hospitality, fitness and dining brands.
Mood's designers build brand playlists and overhead channels from licensed catalog supplied by distributors and labels. Delivering your release through Unchained Music makes it part of the licensed pool those curators program from. Placement is editorial, so strong metadata and genre clarity improve your chances of being programmed.
Yes, through two channels. Venues and providers hold public performance licenses, so in store play generates performance royalties collected by societies such as ASCAP, BMI or PRS, and provider side payments flow through the distribution and licensing chain. Registering with a performing rights organization is essential to collect your share.
Muzak was the most famous name in background music, and Mood Media acquired it in 2011 before retiring the brand in 2013. Mood Media is the modern company operating in that space, with a far wider offering than the elevator music the old name suggests.
Mood serves hundreds of thousands of business locations across retail, restaurants, hotels, banks and gyms in over 140 countries. Its scale means a track programmed into the right brand channel can be heard daily by shoppers and guests across an entire chain.
Set the release up in the app and it goes to this platform with the rest of them, delivered to spec and checked by a person first.
Upload the release yourself in the app, on the plan that fits, and send it to every store you want in one go.
Start DIYFor multi-release plans and label rosters, scoped with the services team before anything starts.
Apply for Artist & Label Services