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REVIEW
FOX21+ puts Colorado Springs local news on the Samsung TV without a login.
Nexstar's free streaming companion for KXRM brings the FOX21 newscast, live weather, and on-demand segments to Tizen — useful in-market, niche everywhere else.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 10, 2026 · 3 MIN READ
FOX21+ arrived on Samsung Tizen in April 2026 as part of Nexstar Media’s wider push to put every one of its 200-odd local affiliates onto every connected-TV platform that matters. The Colorado Springs station, KXRM, has been on the Apple App Store and Google Play for years; the Tizen and webOS builds close the loop on the living-room screen most cord-cutters in the Pikes Peak region actually watch.
The proposition is narrow on purpose. There is no national feed, no wider Nexstar bundle, no FOX broadcast catalogue — just the FOX21 newscast, First Alert weather, and the station’s on-demand segment library, free, with no sign-in. For a Colorado Springs household that has cancelled cable and still wants Joe Cole’s weather block on the big TV at six, that is exactly the product the cord-cutting era requires.
The honest caveat is reach. Outside the KXRM signal area this app does nothing — it is a single-market utility, not an entry point to the Nexstar network. And the live stream needs work; it stuttered through March’s severe-weather coverage in a way the iOS app did not. Both are fixable, neither changes the basic verdict for the people the app exists for: in-market, install it; out-of-market, skip it.
FOX21+ is what a local-affiliate streaming app should be in 2026 — free, login-free, and aimed squarely at the Pikes Peak region.
FEATURES
FOX21+ is the Tizen build of Nexstar Media's free streaming companion to KXRM-TV, the FOX affiliate serving Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and the wider Southern Colorado market. Launched in April 2026, it sits inside the broader Nexstar rollout that has put roughly 200 local-station apps onto Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, and now Samsung Tizen.
Core surfaces: a 24/7 live news stream that mirrors the on-air FOX21 newscast plus rerun blocks between live windows, an on-demand library of recent broadcast segments, a dedicated local-weather feed pulled from the station's First Alert team, and a Southern Colorado news rail organised by topic (local, crime, politics, high-school sports). Content is ad-supported with standard pre-roll and mid-roll breaks.
No account, no Nexstar sign-in, and no pay-TV authentication required for the streaming layers. Playback is 1080p at 30fps from a Nexstar-operated CDN. The remote-control UI is the standard Tizen directional grid — tiles for Live, Weather, On Demand, Local, with a sticky "Watch Live" button on every screen.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The pitch is the execution. There is no login wall, no cable-provider authentication, and no paid tier — the FOX21 newscast and weather block are one click from the Tizen home row. For Colorado Springs and Pueblo households that have cut cable but still want the local newscast on the big screen, that's the whole product, and it works.
The on-demand library updates within an hour of broadcast for most segments, which is faster than the equivalent web replay on fox21news.com. The First Alert weather rail is the strongest section — current conditions, the seven-day, and any active alerts for El Paso, Pueblo, Teller, and the surrounding counties render cleanly and stay current.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
Outside the Pikes Peak region this app has no purpose. It surfaces nothing national, nothing from the wider Nexstar network, and nothing from the FOX broadcast schedule beyond the local newscast. A viewer in Denver or Grand Junction has no reason to install it. That isn't a flaw so much as a definition — but it caps the audience hard.
The streaming layer also stutters during high-traffic events. Severe-weather coverage in March 2026 saw the live feed buffer on Tizen and webOS while the iOS app held up fine, suggesting the CTV CDN allocation needs work. Ad load in the on-demand library is heavy — three pre-rolls before a 90-second segment is common — and there is no way to pay to remove them.
CONCLUSION
FOX21+ is the right shape for a 2026 local-affiliate streaming app: free, login-free, and aimed squarely at one TV market. If you live in Colorado Springs, Pueblo, or anywhere else KXRM serves over the air, install it on the bedroom Samsung and you have replaced the part of cable you actually used. Everyone else can skip it. Watch for Nexstar to fix the live-stream stability before the next severe-weather season.