I think mplayer is amazing.
With rtmpdump and mplayer you can watch internet streaming video. This great post shows the command for several sources like CSPAN, BBC, etc.
I would add my own recipe to listen to live NPR:
First create a playlist file (nprlive24.pls) with the following content:
NumberOfEntries=1 File1=http://npr.ic.llnwd.net/stream/npr_live24 Title1=NPR 24 Hour Program Stream
Then just run mplayer:
mplayer -capture -quiet -nocache -prefer-ipv4 -playlist nprlive24.pls
Don’t you love mplayer?