Samsung TV / information / LOUISIANAFIRST+
REVIEW
LouisianaFirst+ brings the Nexstar local-news bundle to Samsung TVs.
A free, ad-supported Tizen channel for Louisiana's Nexstar affiliates — live newscasts, weather, sports, and on-demand clips, with no login and no cable subscription.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 10, 2026 · 3 MIN READ
LouisianaFirst+
NEXSTAR MEDIA INC
OUR SCORE
6.8
SAMSUNG TV
★ —
PRICE
Free
LouisianaFirst+ is the kind of app that exists because cable cancellation rates in the South have crossed a threshold. Nexstar Media Group owns or operates the major local-affiliate stations across Louisiana — Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Shreveport — and the company has spent the last few years pushing those newsrooms’ output into free, ad-supported streaming channels on every TV platform that will host them. The Tizen build is the Samsung-TV expression of that strategy.
What you get is unfussy and exactly what the label promises. A live 24/7 local-news stream sits at the top of the home screen, pulling from the on-air newscast schedules of the affiliate stations and filling the gaps between them with rerun cycles. Below that, on-demand rails of recent newscasts, weather segments, sports coverage, and investigative reporting. The brand is statewide; the journalism is market-specific. A Baton Rouge viewer watching the morning newscast is watching a WGMB-produced show; a Lafayette viewer the same morning is watching the KLFY feed. The app handles that routing without making the viewer think about it.
The catch is the catch with every free Nexstar ”+” channel: outside the live stream and the most recent newscast, the on-demand catalogue is shallower than the home-screen rail count suggests, and the ad load on shorter clips is heavy enough to drag the experience. For a Louisiana household that has cancelled cable and wants the local newsroom on the living-room TV, that’s an acceptable trade. For everyone else, this isn’t aimed at you, and the app makes no pretence otherwise.
LouisianaFirst+ is the cord-cutter's answer to the 6 o'clock news in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and Shreveport — free, signed-in or not.
FEATURES
LouisianaFirst+ is Nexstar Media's free local-news channel for Louisiana, packaged for Samsung's Tizen TV platform. It surfaces content from Nexstar's Louisiana affiliate stations — Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and Shreveport markets — under a single statewide brand. No account, no subscription, no cable login.
The channel layout follows the now-standard Nexstar "+" template: a live tile at the top of the home rail running the rolling 24/7 local news stream, then on-demand carousels for the most recent newscasts, weather segments, high-school and LSU sports coverage, investigative pieces, and statewide political reporting. Clips are short — the same packages that ran on broadcast that night, cut into 2–5 minute segments and uploaded within an hour of air.
Playback is HLS over the standard Tizen video stack. Ads are pre-roll and mid-roll, served via Nexstar's house ad network — typically two pre-roll spots before a clip and a single mid-roll on longer pieces. There's no DVR, no offline download, no profile system, and no chat or comments layer. Remote-only navigation; no voice search integration beyond Bixby's generic channel-launch handling.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
The free-and-no-login part is the win. For a Louisiana resident who has cancelled cable but still wants the 6 o'clock newscast, the storm coverage when something's brewing in the Gulf, and the Friday-night high-school football wrap, this app delivers exactly that — instantly, on the largest screen in the house, without asking for a credit card or a TV-provider sign-in.
The live 24/7 stream is the standout feature. During severe-weather events — hurricanes, tropical storms, the seasonal flooding that defines a Louisiana summer — the rolling feed becomes genuinely useful in a way an on-demand clip carousel can't match. Nexstar has invested in the broadcast meteorology bench across these markets, and that work flows directly into the app.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
The catalogue outside live news is thin. Once you've watched the most recent newscast and a weather segment, the remaining clip rail is heavily duplicated — the same investigative piece, the same political package, repackaged across three different on-demand tiles. National news leans on the NewsNation feed, which feels grafted-on rather than integrated.
Ad load on the free tier is heavy enough to be noticeable on shorter clips — two 15-second pre-rolls before a 90-second weather segment is a common ratio, and there's no Premium tier on offer to lift it. Search is rudimentary; the lack of a profile or watchlist means a returning viewer can't pick up where they left off. And the Tizen build lags the Roku and Fire TV versions on feature parity by what looks like a release cycle or two.
CONCLUSION
Install LouisianaFirst+ if you're a Louisiana cord-cutter who wants the local newscast, the weather team, and the high-school sports coverage on a Samsung TV without paying for cable. Skip it if you're outside the state — the catalogue is geographically narrow on purpose. Worth watching: whether Nexstar consolidates these affiliate "+" channels into a unified national app, or keeps the per-state branding the way it currently runs.