Samsung TV / information / KXNEWS+
REVIEW
KXNEWS+ brings Bismarck local news to Samsung TVs without an antenna.
Nexstar's free streaming companion to KX Television in western North Dakota — live newscasts, Studio 701, and regional programming on Tizen, with no cable login required.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 10, 2026 · 3 MIN READ
KXNEWS+ is a small app with a specific job. It is the Samsung TV version of the streaming feed for KX Television, the four-station Nexstar group that covers western North Dakota from Bismarck and Minot. On Tizen it arrived in April 2026, a year or two behind the Roku and Fire TV builds, and it does the same thing here that it does there: pipes the local CBS-affiliate newscast onto a connected TV without a cable subscription or an over-the-air antenna.
For most of the country, that sentence is the whole review — there is no reason to install this. For people who live in Bismarck, Minot, Williston, or Dickinson, the calculation is different. Local-news cord-cutting in mid-sized markets has been a slow problem to solve, and Nexstar’s FAST-channel strategy is one of the more credible answers. The app is free, ad-supported, and asks for nothing.
The Tizen build handles the live stream cleanly and falls short everywhere else. There’s no meaningful on-demand library, no search across kxnet.com’s reporting, no Bixby integration, and the ad pods are the standard heavy local-TV load. That’s fine for what this is: a smart-TV pass-through for the same newscast that already plays on the broadcast signal. Within that scope, it works.
KXNEWS+ exists to keep western North Dakota newscasts watchable on a smart TV when the antenna is gone. It does that and not much else.
FEATURES
KXNEWS+ is the Samsung TV streaming app for KX Television, the Nexstar-owned CBS affiliate group covering Bismarck, Minot, Williston, and Dickinson in western North Dakota. The Tizen build is the same FAST-channel app already available on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV, ported to Samsung sets in April 2026.
The app streams live newscasts from KXMB Bismarck and KXMC Minot, the locally produced Studio 701 lifestyle program, and a rotation of additional Nexstar regional programming. Coverage is the daily lineup viewers in the market would otherwise get over-the-air or through a cable package — local news at the standard morning, midday, evening, and late slots, weather hits, and sports.
No sign-in. No subscription. No pay-TV provider check. The app is free and ad-supported, the same way the broadcast signal is. Nexstar's My Nexstar account exists across the network but isn't required to watch on Tizen.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The pitch is narrow and the app meets it. Western North Dakota cord-cutters with a 2020-plus Samsung TV can now get the local CBS newscast without an antenna, without a cable bill, and without juggling a dongle. For a market the size of Bismarck-Minot, having a dedicated smart-TV app at all is more than most local stations manage.
Streaming reliability is the obvious win. The 24/7 live feed on Tizen handles the breakaway from network programming to local news cleanly — viewers don't notice a handoff, the way they would on a Roku-via-HDMI setup. Weather coverage during winter storm events, which is most of why this app exists, comes through at full broadcast quality.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
Discovery and on-demand are thin. The app is essentially a live-stream front door with a short list of pre-recorded segments — there's no deep archive of past newscasts, no search across stories, and no integration with kxnet.com's web article catalogue. Viewers who want a specific story from last week are better off on the phone app or the website.
Ad load on the free FAST feed is heavy in the standard local-TV way — three or four 30-second spots per pod, often the same regional advertiser back-to-back. Samsung remote navigation works but isn't tuned; there's no Bixby voice handoff for "play KX News" the way YouTube and Netflix have on Tizen.
CONCLUSION
Install KXNEWS+ if you live in western North Dakota, own a Samsung TV, and want local newscasts without an antenna or cable. That's the audience. For everyone outside the Bismarck-Minot-Williston-Dickinson footprint, there's nothing to watch here — the content is hyper-local by design. Nexstar's broader play is to roll the same FAST-channel template across its 200-plus station group, so expect more of these on Tizen over 2026.