WCVB NewsCenter 5 - Boston

This app always has great, timely news & weather stories. Although some of the other tabs can have stories that are more informative and not necessarily daily, the Entertainment tab should not be one of them. I like checking this app out daily, but more often than not, the Entertainment portion has not been updated in several days. There are times I start to watch the news on television and see a tease that I am interested in watching, but somehow miss it. I wish every story you broadcast could be easily searched (and found) on the app.

I've been watching their news since I was a teenager, long before it became WCVB. I always liked their format, and the news people. So, when the app came out, it was a no-brained to download it. And, I like the notices I get on my iPad to breaking news. It's gone through several updates over the years, but they all had one thing in common, too many ads! I understand that they need to make money, but there are WAY too many ads. Every time I want to read an article, I need to watch an ad! Ridiculous! I like the weather, too, and being able to check the radar when storms are coming. But, I don't use it as much as I would because of the ads. I can get the news and weather from other places without all the ads. It's just TOO MUCH for too little.

response required

Okay, so you use this app to get the “local” news, etc., but it’s still not user friendly. I still remember the old app as preferable in many ways, but now we have this. It leaves a lot to be desired. How many enjoy watching a 30 second ad to see a 20 second video? Not me. I get the 15 second ad, but the big boy news apps let you back out after 15 seconds if the ad is longer. Basically, if I see an ad over 15 seconds, I don’t watch it or the video...lose, lose. And maneuvering is still not very good. If you want to go back, you don’t end up where you started and need to work at finding the articles you were planning to read as next in sequence. If that sounds confusing, it is. Again, this site gives you the news and weather, but it could be so much better.

response required

First - I love WCVB the *station*. They do a great job and I only watch channel 5 for my TV news. However - when it comes to watching the live video stream of their news, this app is horrible. If all you want to do is watch the news live, don’t waste your time with this app. Every time you start the video stream you are subjected to at least one 15 second ad. The worst part? If you switch away to another app then back to the WCVB app, you have to restart the stream - and watch ANOTHER ad - and sometimes you get the same ad you were already forced to watch!! If that forced advertising wasn’t bad enough, the live stream is unreliable at best. It’s often just going to a black screen for minutes on end, and requires you to exit the stream and restart the stream, with - you guessed it - ANOTHER ad or multiple ads. I don’t mind watching ads - but for Pete’s sake REMEMBER what ads I’ve already seen and DON’T make me watch any ad again if all I had to do was answer a quick text. I love you WCVB (the station) but this app is abysmal.

response required

I like the news alerts from the app, but I can't click on any of them because you never know when an extremely loud ad is going to start playing on my device even though my sound is turned off. At least start out muted if you're going to force your users into an auto played video. I'm not even sure why this is necessary for a news story that doesn't have a video to go with it. You need to do better. These are solved problems. No app should just start broadcasting loudly from a users speakers against their wishes. Respect the audio selections on the users device! Its come to this - I read the alert from your app and then I go Google for a link to a news source that won't hijack my speakers.