Report updated May 20, 2026
Cincinnati.com: The Enquirer
For residents of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky seeking local news and sports coverage.
Cincinnati.com: The Enquirer is a challenged news app that is free with in-app purchases. With a 4.2/5 rating from 5.5K reviews, it faces significant user friction. Users particularly appreciate access to local and national news coverage provides value for community members, though navigation and touch controls feel unresponsive or counterintuitive following the latest update remains a common concern.
What is Cincinnati.com: The Enquirer?
Cincinnati.com is a local news app providing investigative reporting, sports coverage, and eNewspaper access for Greater Cincinnati residents on iOS and Android.
Users hire the app to maintain community connection and access local watchdog journalism, replacing the physical print newspaper with a digital-first interface.
Current Momentum
v8.10 · 1d ago
Maintenance- Ships bug fixes and stability updates.
- Maintains regional sports awards program.
Active Nemesis
NewsBreak: Local News & Alerts
By Particle Media
Other Rivals
7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸
NewsNo ranking data
Rating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User Mood
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
What Are The Key Features?
Digital replica of the print newspaper
Curated news feed based on user interests
Push notifications for local events
Annual program for local athletes
How much does it cost?
- Free sampling of articles
- Monthly or annual subscription for full access
Metered paywall gates investigative content to drive conversion from casual readers to paid subscribers.
Who Built It?
Gannett
Providing hyper-local news and sports coverage to US communities through digital-first newspaper replicas and real-time reporting.
Portfolio
13
Apps
What other apps does Gannett make?
Explore the full Gannett report
Portfolio breakdown, audience, momentum, and every app published by Gannett.
What do users think recently?
High confidence · Latest 60 of 99 total reviews analyzed · Based on 99 reviews. Signal may be noisy.
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a frustrated sentiment. Users appreciate access to local and national news coverage provides value for community members, but report navigation and touch controls feel unresponsive or counterintuitive following the latest update.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
What Users Want
How have ratings & review volume moved?
Rating, review sentiment, and total reviews over time, with release markers showing the post-launch impact.
Vertical markers = app releases. Hover any release for the post-release impact delta.
View the full user-sentiment analysis
Mood gauge, ratings & review-volume history, every praise / complaint / request, and sentiment over time.
What is the competitive landscape for Cincinnati.com: The Enquirer?
How's The News Market?
How does it evolve in the News market?
The app holds a #80 Grossing position in the US News & Magazines category, with a recent 15-spot climb in specific sub-category rankings. The disparity between free-tier discovery and grossing rank signals monetization friction relative to the app's local authority.
Rank progression
2 active rankings tracked — 30-day window
The rivals identified
Nemeses(1)
As a high-volume news aggregator, it competes for the same daily active user attention by prioritizing community-driven engagement and social discourse over traditional reporting.
Contenders(4)
It competes as a direct regional news peer, attempting to modernize the traditional newspaper experience through digital replicas and interactive elements.
This app competes by offering a highly personalized, local-first news experience that mirrors the target's regional focus.
Semana competes through a focus on high-impact investigative journalism that mirrors the target's own Pulitzer-winning editorial mission.
This app competes by offering a premium, archive-heavy experience that targets loyal readers seeking historical context alongside daily news.
Same space(3)
It competes by focusing on the intersection of high-quality local reporting and specialized weather tracking tools.
This peer competes by offering a 24/7 streaming news model that challenges the target's traditional article-based format.
It operates in the same category by leveraging live streaming and location-based alerts to maintain high user engagement.
Compare Cincinnati.com: The Enquirer against every rival
All rivals in one side-by-side table — identity, store metrics, ratings & sentiment, and strategic intel — plus a head-to-head page for each.
The outtake for Cincinnati.com: The Enquirer
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Pulitzer-winning investigative reporting establishes regional brand authority
- High school sports awards program creates unique community-engagement hook
Critical Frictions
- 1.7-point rating gap between iOS and Android platforms
- Persistent sign-in loops block paid content access
- Navigation controls fail standard touch-responsiveness tests
Growth Levers
- Integrate live video streaming to match broadcast-style competitors
- Expand sports awards into digital-first community platform
Market Threats
- NewsBreak's hyper-local notification scale
- Broadcast-backed competitors' superior video-first UX
- Ad-light interfaces from cable-backed rivals
What are the next best moves?
Rebuild navigation controls because touch-responsiveness is the top complaint → reduce churn
Navigation and touch controls are the #1 frustration theme in sentiment analysis.
Trade-off: Pause the personalized feed algorithm update — navigation stability is a higher churn risk.
Audit sign-in flow because loading loops prevent access to paid content → increase subscription retention
Subscribers report frequent sign-in failures when attempting to access paid content.
Trade-off: Deprioritize new dining guide features — paid-access stability is critical for revenue.
A counter-intuitive read
The Enquirer's reliance on a print-replica eNewspaper is not a legacy burden but a unique B2B retention moat for older, high-LTV subscribers that digital-only aggregators cannot replicate.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Live video streaming (available in WFAA but missing here)
- Ad-light premium interface (available in Spectrum News but missing here)
Key Takeaways
The Enquirer maintains a strong investigative moat but risks losing its digital subscriber base to technical instability, so the PM must prioritize touch-control responsiveness and sign-in reliability to stabilize churn.
Where Is It Heading?
Declining
Local news traffic is consolidating around notification-first aggregators, leaving static news readers like the Enquirer exposed to engagement erosion. The current technical instability in the latest release must be corrected to prevent long-term subscriber attrition.
Persistent navigation regressions in the latest update drive high churn, which compounds the rating drag already visible on Android.
Aggressive ad overlays obscure article text, which degrades the readability of premium content and accelerates subscriber dissatisfaction.