Samsung TV / videos / HPM+ PBS
REVIEW
HPM+ PBS brings Houston Public Media to the Samsung TV apps row.
The Tizen companion to KUHT-TV Channel 8 and KUHF 88.7 lets Houston households watch local PBS programming, archives, and station news on the big screen — useful in Houston, narrow everywhere else.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 10, 2026 · 3 MIN READ
HPM+ PBS
HOUSTON PUBLIC MEDIA
OUR SCORE
6.9
SAMSUNG TV
★ —
PRICE
Free
Houston Public Media has been broadcasting since 1953 — KUHT-TV Channel 8 was the first public television station in the United States, signing on years before the network that became PBS existed. The University of Houston still holds the license, KUHF 88.7 still carries NPR’s morning and evening news blocks across the metro, and HPM+ is the streaming surface that ties that local public-media operation to the smart TV.
The Samsung Tizen build is a competent companion app for a regional public broadcaster. It is not a general-purpose streaming destination, and the reading that flatters it is the right one: this is Channel 8 on the apps row. Houston households who already watch KUHT over the air now get an on-demand layer for the station’s own productions plus, with a Passport membership sign-in, the national PBS archive layered on top.
What the app doesn’t do is also clear. It is not trying to compete with Netflix, Max, or even the national PBS app on catalogue breadth. It’s trying to be the most direct path between a Houston Samsung TV and the local public-media programming that household already pays for through pledges or member donations. On that brief, the Tizen client lands.
HPM+ is a local public-media app first and a streaming destination second. That framing makes the experience legible.
FEATURES
HPM+ PBS is the Samsung TV companion to Houston Public Media — the University of Houston-licensed broadcaster behind KUHT-TV Channel 8 (the country's first public television station, on air since 1953) and KUHF 88.7 NPR. The Tizen app puts that station's video output on the smart-TV apps row alongside the national PBS app.
The catalogue is local-first: HPM's own productions, Houston-area news segments, station documentaries, and live-stream access to the KUHT broadcast schedule. National PBS programming — NOVA, Frontline, Masterpiece, the NewsHour — comes through the membership-gated PBS Passport tier when the user signs in with a participating station account, the same model every PBS member-station app uses.
Free at the install. Sign-in is optional for casual viewing; required to unlock Passport's full archive of past national PBS series. Navigation is the standard Tizen video-app layout: directional pad, a top-level row of categories, and Bixby voice search for content queries. No 4K, no HDR — the source material is mostly 1080p broadcast or upscaled SD archives.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The framing is honest. HPM+ doesn't pretend to be a national streaming service competing with Netflix or Disney+. It's the Channel 8 viewer's app, and it puts the station's local productions one click away on the TV that's already showing them over the air. For Houston households who already donate to HPM or watch KUHT regularly, that shortcut has real value.
The Passport tie-in works. Signing in with a participating-station membership unlocks the deeper PBS archive directly inside the HPM+ app — no app-switching to the national PBS client, no separate credentials to track. Membership-funded public media benefits when the supporting station owns the surface viewers spend time in.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
Reach is the constraint. The catalogue is bounded by what HPM produces and what PBS Passport licenses, which means anyone outside the Houston metro and anyone without a Passport membership sees a small content library. The Tizen app is doing what it set out to do, but that set is narrow by design.
Stream quality lags national-tier streaming apps. Upscaled archive material looks soft on a 2026 Neo QLED at typical viewing distance, and the broadcast live stream tops out at 1080p with visible compression on motion-heavy segments. Search is functional but doesn't reach into national PBS programming until after a Passport sign-in, which can confuse first-time users hunting for a NOVA episode they remember.
CONCLUSION
HPM+ PBS earns its place on Houston-area Samsung TVs. It's the local public-media app done correctly — Channel 8's broadcast, station productions, and Passport's archive in one place — and that's the right scope for it. Outside Houston the install case collapses to the PBS Passport access, which the national PBS app handles equally well. Donate to HPM if you watch regularly; the app is the easiest way to act on that membership.