How to Listen to Internet Radio in VLC, foobar2000, Winamp and mpv

Published 28 September 2026

A desktop media player is still one of the best ways to listen to internet radio: no browser tab to lose, keyboard control, and a playlist of stations you can keep for years. All you need is a station's stream address, or a playlist file full of them. Here is how it works in the four most popular players.

Getting the addresses

• One station: every station page on 72FM has a Stream address panel with a Copy button and a one-station .m3u download.
• A whole country or genre: free M3U playlists by country and genre, rebuilt every week from the open Radio Browser directory. Each opens as a list of stations you can skip through. In Kodi they fill the Radio section: see internet radio in Kodi.

How to find a station's stream URL covers other ways to find an address, and how to write your own M3U file.

VLC

• Play one station: on Windows or Linux choose Media → Open Network Stream (Ctrl+N), paste the address and press Play. On a Mac choose File → Open Network.
• Play a playlist: open the .m3u file like any other file, or paste the playlist's own web address into Open Network Stream. Every station appears as an entry you can step through.
• Keep your own list: add the stations you like to the playlist, then choose Media → Save Playlist to File (Ctrl+Y).

When a station sends song titles, VLC shows them in the playlist and in the media information window.

foobar2000

Choose File → Add Location (Ctrl+U), paste the stream address and press OK; the station joins the current playlist. Opening an .m3u file adds every station in it. Keep a separate playlist tab for radio so your music library stays tidy.

Winamp

Press Ctrl+L (Play URL), paste the address and press Open. Winamp also opens .m3u and .pls files, and it shows the song title in its display when the station sends one.

mpv

Give mpv the address, or a playlist, on the command line:

mpv https://example.com/stream
mpv my-stations.m3u

In a playlist, > and < move to the next and previous station, and q quits. mpv prints the song title in the terminal when the station sends it.

If a station will not play

• The address has changed. Broadcasters move servers; copy the current address from the station's page.
• The stream is HLS (ending in .m3u8) and an older player version cannot read it. Update the player, or pick another stream from the same station.
• It keeps stopping. Fixing radio stream buffering goes through the causes, and internet radio stopped working covers streams that go dark for good.