The MP3 period’s favourite participant returns with a month-to-month subscription.
Winamp, the endlessly skinnable MP3 participant that dominated Home windows desktops within the pre-streaming period, is making a comeback subsequent yr, however not as you realize it. In a partnership with Deezer, Winamp will probably be reborn as a very new participant with its personal premium subscription service, with Deezer offering the white-label streaming know-how and licensed catalog.
In line with the official announcement, the brand new participant will add that subscription alongside native recordsdata, Web radio, podcasts and cloud-stored music libraries. The brand new participant will sit alongside the traditional desktop app moderately than exchange it: Winamp claims the unique nonetheless has greater than 40 million energetic customers worldwide, and the identical Deezer-powered subscription will probably be added after launch.
A mutually helpful association
Deezer reported a decline in new subscriptions from associate offers in its first half 2026 monetary outcomes. They fell to three.1 million, down some 800,000 yr over yr primarily based on some fast math. Income from that partnerships section dropped 7.6 % to 70.7 million euros as a bundling cope with LATAM retail large Mercado Libre wound down. Deezer instructed traders in April that rebuilding this aspect of the enterprise by means of white-label offers is a acknowledged strategic precedence, with latest segments protecting Telenor and French power provider EDF.
Deezer signed the Winamp deal on July 1, weeks earlier than the official announcement, and offered it to traders as a part of its revamped Deezer for Enterprise program. This white-label association will see Deezer working the streaming infrastructure and supplying the catalog, whereas Winamp retains full possession of the core product, its branding and subscriber relationship. Both sides brings what the opposite wants, since Winamp has no music licenses and no streaming infrastructure, whereas Deezer will get the largest model but to plug into its white-label program.
Winamp has promised this earlier than
Alexandre Saboundjian, then CEO of Winamp proprietor Radioomy and now CEO of Winamp Group, instructed TechCrunch in October 2018 {that a} fully new Winamp would launch the next yr. He promised “a extra full listening expertise” spanning dwelling, MP3s, cloud libraries, podcasts and streaming radio stations. That streaming-friendly revival deliberate for 2019 by no means got here. The plan was reliant on pulling third-party streaming providers right into a single app, an method that will’ve required integration offers Winamp by no means introduced. The 2027 Deezer-Winamp partnership sidesteps that drawback fully by bundling Winamp’s service with Deezer’s licensing and streaming infrastructure on day one.
We did ultimately see a refreshed model of your dad and mom’ favourite MP3 software program three years later in 2022, adopted by a rocker stretch of name stewardship. Winamp revealed the traditional participant’s supply code on GitHub in September 2024 beneath a customized license that originally barred anybody from distributing forks. All the repo was deleted a couple of weeks later, after the license attracted sustained criticism and proprietary code belonging to Dolby and Microsoft was discovered.
Winamp hasn’t supplied any particulars on pricing or supported platforms but, regardless of promising a subscription mannequin that is “essentially completely different” from immediately’s streaming providers. The press launch commits to a customizable interface, social options and new instruments for locating and organizing music, with extra product previews promised within the coming months.
For the primary time in its close to 30-year historical past, Winamp will probably be providing a premium subscription. Ought to the Deezer partnership show profitable, it will be fairly the rebound for a service that AOL had deliberate to close down in 2013 earlier than promoting it off to Radionomy.
