By Tegna
Report updated Jun 10, 2026
St. Louis News from KSDK
For st. Louis area residents seeking local news, weather forecasts, and community-specific information.
St. Louis News from KSDK is a well-regarded news app that is completely free. With a 4.7/5 rating from 35.8K reviews, it maintains solid user satisfaction. Users particularly appreciate reliability of local weather alerts, though static content feed remains a common concern.
What is St. Louis News from KSDK?
KSDK News is a local broadcast news and weather app for St. Louis residents, available on iOS and Android.
Users hire the app for verified local situational awareness and severe weather alerts that national aggregators cannot replicate.
Current Momentum
v50.8 · 1w ago
Intense- Expanded morning show start time.
- Shipped general performance improvements.
Active Nemesis
NewsBreak: Local News & Alerts
By Particle Media
Other Rivals
Rating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User MoodAI-powered deep analysis surfacing high-signal insights. Still in beta, accuracy improves daily. For informational purposes only.
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
How Is The App's Momentum Right Now?
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What Are The Key Features?
Automated push notifications for severe weather events based on user location
Live broadcast of newscasts and local events directly within the app
Cast live streams and video clips to external TV devices via integrated casting protocols
Real-time tracking of local school status updates
How much does it cost?
- Free ad-supported access to all news, weather, and video content
The app operates as a free, ad-supported extension of the KSDK broadcast brand, monetizing via display and video ad inventory.
Who Built It?
Tegna
Delivering localized news and weather intelligence to US communities through a network of high-performance regional broadcast affiliates.
Portfolio
13
Apps
Who is Tegna?
Tegna has successfully digitized its traditional broadcast television infrastructure into a standardized, high-performance mobile fleet. Their primary moat is the existing network of local newsrooms and FCC-licensed assets, providing live video and hyperlocal reporting that digital-only aggregators struggle to replicate. The strategic signal is their highly synchronized maintenance cycle, which ensures dozens of regional variants remain technically competitive against national news outlets while maintaining consistent user experiences.
Who is Tegna for?
- Local residents in specific US metropolitan areas seeking real-time updates on breaking news
- Severe weather
- Community events
Portfolio momentum
With 296 updates across 50 apps in the last six months and 98% of the portfolio active, the publisher maintains an exceptionally high release cadence.
What other apps does Tegna make?
Cleveland News from WKYC
Charlotte News from WCNC
Indianapolis News from 13 WTHR
KARE 11 Minneapolis-St. Paul
Greensboro News from WFMY
WFAA - News from North Texas
What do users think recently?
High confidence · Latest 100 of 35.8K total reviews analyzed
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a excited sentiment. Users appreciate reliability of local weather alerts, but report static content feed.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
What Users Want
What is the competitive landscape for St. Louis News from KSDK?
How's The News Market?
How does it evolve in the News market?
KSDK News holds the #158 Free position in the US News & Magazines category, with a 4.77 rating on iOS. The decline in chart rank signals that the current broadcast-first content strategy is losing ground to algorithmic aggregators.
| Country | Category | Chart | Rank | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸 US | News | iOSFree | #81 | ▼40 |
| 🇺🇸 US | News & Magazines | AndroidFree | #158 | ▼19 |
The rivals identified
The Nemesis
Head to Head
The target app must pivot from a static broadcast-first experience to a more dynamic, community-aware feed to prevent NewsBreak from capturing the local news intent of its core audience.
What sets St. Louis News from KSDK apart
Provides direct, unfiltered access to trusted local broadcast journalism and verified weather radar data
Maintains a stronger brand association with local news anchors and established community reporting teams
What's NewsBreak: Local News & Alerts's Edge
Leverages a massive, automated content aggregation engine that scales across thousands of local municipalities simultaneously
Integrates community-driven alerts and social-style engagement features that keep users returning for non-broadcast updates
Contenders
Integrates high-production-value live news streaming that outperforms standard text-heavy news aggregators
Maintains a consistent release cadence that ensures stability and feature parity across major iOS updates
Prioritizes traditional broadcast-style news delivery with a focus on local investigative reporting segments
Offers a simplified, utility-focused interface designed for quick access to weather radar and traffic
Spectrum News: Local Stories
★4.7 (48.7K)Charter Communications
⚡A strong contender that leverages cable provider infrastructure to deliver localized, high-quality video storytelling.
Focuses on long-form local storytelling rather than just breaking news headlines and weather alerts
Leverages deep integration with cable provider subscriber data to offer exclusive regional content access
Peers
Offers deep-dive investigative journalism and editorial content that local apps cannot replicate
Utilizes a sophisticated subscription-based monetization model that prioritizes high-value reader engagement
NBC News: Breaking & US News
★4.7 (150.7K)NBC News Digital, LLC
⚡A major national news peer that provides a broader context for breaking news stories.
Provides national-level breaking news coverage that complements local reporting with broader context
Features a robust video-on-demand library that covers national political and global events
New Kids on the Block
Provides real-time, crowdsourced wildfire tracking that offers higher utility than standard weather apps
Focuses on a single, critical use case (public safety) to drive high user retention during emergencies
Delivers raw, unfiltered audio feeds from emergency scanners that provide immediate local situational awareness
Offers a low-friction, audio-first experience that bypasses the need for traditional news production
The outtake for St. Louis News from KSDK
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Trusted local broadcast brand identity sustains high user trust
- Severe weather alert infrastructure drives high-frequency daily opens
- Integrated TV casting extends session duration on large screens
Critical Frictions
- Static content feed lacks community-driven engagement loops
- Declining category rank indicates slowing organic install velocity
- Ad-only monetization limits revenue per active user
Growth Levers
- Integrate crowdsourced community alerts to increase daily retention
- Expand school-closing utility to year-round community event tracking
- Develop B2B partnerships with local businesses for sponsored content
Market Threats
- NewsBreak's discovery algorithm captures local news intent
- Watch Duty's emergency mapping siphons high-intent safety traffic
- Declining chart rank reduces organic new-user discovery
What are the next best moves?
Ship community-driven alert integration because static feeds lack engagement → increase daily session frequency
User requests for social-style engagement indicate a need for dynamic content to compete with aggregators.
Trade-off: Deprioritize the planned UI refresh for the weather radar — community engagement is a higher retention lever.
Pivot to year-round community event tracking because school-closing utility is seasonal → maximize ad-inventory year-round
High-utility seasonal features drive spikes in DAU, but lack year-round retention value.
Trade-off: Pause development of new video-on-demand categories — event tracking has higher daily utility.
A counter-intuitive read
The app's reliance on broadcast-first content is not a weakness but a high-trust barrier that aggregators cannot replicate, provided the team pivots to community-aware feeds rather than chasing aggregator-style automation.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Crowdsourced community alerts (available in NewsBreak but absent here)
- Real-time emergency mapping (available in Watch Duty but absent here)
Key Takeaways
KSDK News maintains a strong brand moat through weather utility, but the static content feed is losing the battle for daily attention to algorithmic aggregators, so the PM must prioritize community-driven engagement to stabilize retention.
Where Is It Heading?
Mixed Signals
The local news market is consolidating around dynamic, community-aware platforms that prioritize location-based discovery over static programming. KSDK News remains advantaged by its trusted brand, but the current maintenance-mode update cadence leaves it exposed to faster-moving competitors, so revenue growth hinges on increasing session frequency via community features.
Declining category rank (currently #158) suggests the broadcast-first content strategy is failing to capture new-user intent against modern aggregators.
High-frequency weather alerts continue to drive daily app opens, providing a stable foundation for testing new community-driven engagement features.