Samsung TV / information / ROCHESTERFIRST
REVIEW
RochesterFirst on Tizen is a competent Nexstar local-news app for the Rochester market.
WROC-TV's Tizen client delivers Rochester NY local news, weather, and live streams from the CBS affiliate, with the standard Nexstar template lightly skinned for a Samsung remote.
BY THE APP COMRADE DESK · MAY 11, 2026 · 3 MIN READ
RochesterFirst
NEXSTAR MEDIA INC
OUR SCORE
6.8
SAMSUNG TV
★ —
PRICE
Free
RochesterFirst is one of roughly two hundred near-identical Nexstar Media Group local-station apps that have quietly populated every smart-TV platform over the past three years. Each one is the TV companion for a specific Nexstar broadcast affiliate — in this case WROC-TV, the CBS affiliate serving Rochester, New York, and the Genesee Valley out of a studio on Humboldt Street. The Tizen build does what the template asks: live news streaming, Storm Team 8 weather, on-demand clip playback, all for free with pre-roll ads.
If you live in the Rochester DMA, this is a useful app. Cord-cutting has gutted local-news reach in mid-sized US markets, and a free Samsung-TV route to the CBS affiliate’s newscasts and the local weather desk is exactly the bridge a station like WROC needs to keep older over-the-air viewers and younger cord-cutters in the same news ecosystem. If you don’t live in Rochester, there is nothing here for you.
The honest critique is that the Nexstar template hasn’t evolved. The same UI ships on WIVB in Buffalo, KARK in Little Rock, WGN in Chicago, and every other station the group operates. None of them use Bixby voice search. None of them integrate with Samsung’s Universal Guide. The ad load is heavy and repetitive. But the basics work, the live stream is reliable, and for the audience this is actually for — Monroe County residents who want their local news on a TV without a cable box — RochesterFirst delivers the broadcast the way a local-station app should.
RochesterFirst on a Samsung TV is exactly what a local-news app should be — local, free, ad-supported, and forgettable in the right way.
FEATURES
RochesterFirst is the Tizen smart-TV companion to WROC-TV, the CBS affiliate in Rochester, New York, operated by Nexstar Media Group. The app surfaces the same content as the rochesterfirst.com website and the mobile apps: top local stories, weather forecasts and radar, sports headlines, traffic, and on-demand news clips from the WROC newsroom.
The Tizen build follows the Nexstar TV-app template seen on dozens of sister stations across the country — a left-rail navigation between Live, News, Weather, Sports, and Replay; a center grid of thumbnails per section; and a bottom strip for the most recent clips. Live streaming covers WROC's 24/7 Rochester News Now feed when available, plus simulcasts of scheduled newscasts (Daybreak, midday, 5pm, 6pm, 11pm).
Weather pulls from the Storm Team 8 desk — interactive radar, seven-day forecast for Monroe County and the surrounding Genesee Valley, school closings, and severe-weather alerts. There's no account requirement and no paywall; ads are pre-roll and mid-roll on VOD clips, identical to the broadcast-station web ad model.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
This app exists, which is the headline. A free, ad-supported, Samsung-TV-native way to pull up Rochester local news and Storm Team 8 weather on the big screen is genuinely useful in a market where cord-cutting has otherwise stripped local-news access from many households. The live feed is reliable, the on-demand clip library updates within minutes of broadcast, and weather radar performs well enough on a remote for a quick lake-effect check before driving to Buffalo.
The Nexstar template is recognisable for a reason — it works. Navigation is predictable, load times are acceptable on 2022-and-newer Samsung hardware, and the app handles a Samsung remote's directional pad without the input lag that plagues some local-news Tizen builds.
ROOM TO IMPROVE
Visual polish is thin. The interface is the same skin used by WIVB Buffalo, WJW Cleveland, and a hundred other Nexstar stations — only the colours and station ID change. There's no Tizen-specific UI consideration: no Samsung Health weather widget integration, no Bixby voice search for "play the 6pm news," no integration with Samsung's Universal Guide. It's a phone app port with TV-sized fonts.
Ad load is heavy. Pre-rolls run two ads, mid-rolls interrupt longer clips, and the same regional auto-dealership and personal-injury-attorney spots cycle on near-permanent loop. The live stream occasionally drops to a "please stand by" card during commercial breaks rather than carrying the broadcast ad pod. Search is also rudimentary — there's no way to filter by reporter, topic, or date.
CONCLUSION
Install RochesterFirst if you live in the Rochester DMA and want a free Tizen route to WROC-TV's local news and Storm Team 8 weather on a Samsung TV. Skip it if you don't — there's nothing here for anyone outside western New York, and the Nexstar template offers no broader appeal. Watch for whether Nexstar refreshes the TV apps to use Samsung-specific features; until then, this is a reliable, forgettable local utility.