Roku / news_and_weather / OURQC+ WHBF CBS 4 QUAD CITIES
REVIEW
OurQC+ is the local-news channel WHBF needed five years ago.
Nexstar's CBS 4 Quad Cities now has a free Roku channel that streams its newscasts, weather radar, and KLJB/Fox 18 packages. The bones are right; the polish isn't there yet.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 10, 2026 · 3 MIN READ
OurQC+ WHBF CBS 4 Quad Cities
NEXSTAR BROADCASTING, INC.
OUR SCORE
6.4
ROKU
★ 5.0
PRICE
Free
Local-affiliate streaming channels are a category Roku invented and then mostly forgot about. Every Nexstar, Sinclair, and Gray station now has one — a free, ad-supported tile that streams the 5pm news to whoever bothered to install it. Most are unloved. OurQC+ is one of them, and it earns a careful recommendation for one specific person: the Quad Cities resident who cut cable and misses the WHBF weatherman.
The channel launched in December 2025 and behaves like it. The template is solid — Nexstar reuses it across the country — and CBS 4’s actual newscast streams cleanly when you tune in for it. But the seams are visible. Tile artwork is uneven. Search doesn’t work inside the app. Pre-roll ads stack. None of these are deal-breakers for a free local-news channel; all of them are reasons it doesn’t punch above its weight.
For the people it’s built for — roughly 350,000 households in the Davenport/Rock Island/Moline DMA — it does the job. For everyone else, it’s a Roku tile.
If you live in Rock Island, Davenport, or Bettendorf and you've cut the cord, this is the channel you install. Everyone else can skip it.
FEATURES
Live linear stream of WHBF's CBS 4 newscasts (morning, midday, evening, late), on-demand replays of recent broadcasts, a weather section with radar and the station's "Pinpoint Forecast" segments, and a sports tab that pulls in high-school and Iowa/Illinois college coverage. KLJB Fox 18 packages and OurQuadCities web video are mixed into the on-demand feed.
The channel is free, ad-supported, and signs in to nothing. Launches into a poster-style home row of recent newscasts, then drills down into category tabs (News, Weather, Sports, About). Voice search via the Roku remote works at the channel-store level but not inside the app — once you're in, navigation is directional-pad only.
Built on the same Nexstar local-station template that powers dozens of sister channels (KARK Little Rock, WJTV Jackson, WGN Chicago's local cut). The template is the product; the editorial is the differentiator.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The live newscast actually streams reliably during the 5pm and 10pm windows, which is the entire job. Weather radar loads in under three seconds on a current Streaming Stick 4K and matches what's on the broadcast feed. Severe-weather cut-ins surface to the home row quickly enough to be useful during a Mississippi Valley storm cell.
Free with no account is the right call. A local CBS affiliate's Roku channel asking for a sign-in would be friction it can't afford — most viewers are here because they cut Mediacom or DirecTV and want their hometown weatherman back.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
The Nexstar template shows. Tile artwork is inconsistent — some segments use station-branded thumbnails, others fall back to a generic "WHBF" plate. On-demand video carries pre-roll ads that occasionally double up, and the resume-where-you-left-off behavior doesn't survive a channel exit. Search inside the app is absent; you scroll.
Linear stream quality tops out at 720p, which is fine for a talking-head newscast but visibly soft on field packages and weather graphics. The release date stamp says December 2025, and it shows — the categories are right, the polish hasn't caught up to the structure yet.
CONCLUSION
If you live in Rock Island, Davenport, Bettendorf, or Moline and you've cut the cord, install this — it's the easiest way to keep CBS 4's newscasts and weather coverage on the family TV. Everyone outside the Quad Cities DMA has no reason to. Watch for whether Nexstar invests in better artwork and in-app search; the editorial is already there.