Report updated Jun 3, 2026
WKBN 27 First News
For residents of Youngstown, Warren, and surrounding Ohio and Pennsylvania counties seeking local news, weather, and community updates.
WKBN 27 First News is a struggling news app that is completely free. With a 4.5/5 rating from 6.7K reviews, it struggles with user retention. Users particularly appreciate informative local news coverage provides factual updates without political bias interjection, though frequent application crashes and freezing during article loading prevent basic news consumption remains a common concern.
What is WKBN 27 First News?
WKBN 27 First News is a local news and weather app for residents of Ohio and Pennsylvania, providing live broadcasts and community articles on iOS and Android.
Users hire this app for immediate situational awareness regarding local weather and community events, using it as a primary source for regional information that national aggregators ignore.
Current Momentum
v505.0
- Ships general bug fixes only.
- Maintains high-intent local obituary traffic.
Active Nemesis
WFAA - News from North Texas
By Tegna
Other Rivals
7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸
NewsNo ranking data
Rating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User Mood
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
Loading...
What Are The Key Features?
Real-time broadcast of local news and weather content via the WKBN+ platform
Visual map interface for tracking severe weather conditions in Ohio and Pennsylvania
Searchable database of local tributes and obituaries by high school or region
How much does it cost?
- Free ad-supported access to all news, weather, and live streams
The app operates on an ad-supported model, utilizing the My Nexstar sign-in to aggregate user data across the network.
Who Built It?
LIN Television
Delivering hyper-local news and real-time weather intelligence to regional US communities through established broadcast media brands.
Portfolio
13
Apps
What other apps does LIN Television make?
Explore the full LIN Television report
Portfolio breakdown, audience, momentum, and every app published by LIN Television.
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 upset sentiment. Users appreciate informative local news coverage provides factual updates without political bias interjection, but report frequent application crashes and freezing during article loading prevent basic news consumption and aggressive video advertisement placement disrupts the reading experience and consumes mobile data.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
What Users Want
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 WKBN 27 First News?
How's The News Market?
Market outlook for this category
Available very soon
Which niche is WKBN 27 First News in?
to stay informed on local news and weather
Explore the full Sports News Aggregators niche
Every app in this space — 148 tracked, the niche's live rankings, and Marlvel's editorial take on the job-to-be-done.
The rivals identified
Nemeses(1)
Dailyhunt competes for the same mobile news consumption share by offering a massive, multi-language content aggregator that dwarfs local news apps in scale and engagement.
Contenders(4)
Milliyet competes by positioning itself as a comprehensive information hub that includes financial data alongside traditional news.
This app competes for the attention of news readers by utilizing an intelligent recommendation engine and deep social media integration.
KSDK is a direct functional competitor, mirroring the target's local news broadcast model with added utility features like school closings.
KQED competes by providing a high-quality, public-media-focused news experience that prioritizes live streaming and on-demand content.
Same space(3)
This app competes by offering a highly personalized local news experience with live-ticker functionality.
Semana competes by focusing on investigative journalism and continuous news updates for a professional audience.
Cumhuriyet operates in the same news category, focusing on long-form journalism and historical content access.
Compare WKBN 27 First News 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 WKBN 27 First News
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- High-intent local traffic driven by obituaries
- Direct access to local broadcast video assets
Critical Frictions
- Frequent crashes on story-load
- Aggressive ad-density disrupting reading
- Incomplete article rendering on mobile
Growth Levers
- Develop neighborhood-level push notification toggles
- Integrate real-time local commute data
Market Threats
- Watch Duty's geospatial utility
- NewsBreak's AI-driven recommendation engine
- Persistent stability regressions eroding trust
What are the next best moves?
Audit article-loading logic because frequent crashes are the top complaint → reduce churn
Sentiment analysis identifies crashes during article loading as the primary driver of negative feedback.
Trade-off: Pause the font-size adjustment feature sprint — stability is a higher-order retention requirement.
Reduce video ad frequency because intrusive placement is the #2 complaint → improve session duration
User reviews explicitly cite aggressive video ads as a reason for abandoning the app.
Trade-off: Accept lower short-term ad revenue to stabilize the daily active user base.
A counter-intuitive read
The app's stability issues are a competitive advantage for rivals like Watch Duty, as they allow specialized, high-utility entrants to capture the local-news market share by default.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Neighborhood-level push notification toggles (available in WFAA but absent here)
- Real-time commute data integration (available in WSB-TV but absent here)
Key Takeaways
The app provides unique local value through obituaries and weather, but technical instability and ad-density are actively destroying its user base, so the PM must prioritize stability fixes over ad-revenue to prevent total churn.
Where Is It Heading?
Declining
Local news traffic is consolidating around high-utility, stable platforms, leaving WKBN exposed to churn as users switch to more reliable alternatives. The current technical state suggests a decline in active users unless stability is prioritized over ad-density in the next release.
Persistent crashes on the latest version prevent basic news consumption, which accelerates churn among the core local user base.
Aggressive video ad placement disrupts reading, causing users to abandon the app in favor of cleaner, national-scale news aggregators.