KCCI 8 News Reviews

KCCI8News is terrible. Many of the titles are cut off of the headline stories such that you can't read the whole thing- even when you're on the page specifically for that story. Then the transcript is cut off also which makes it impossible to just skim the news when you don't want to sit and watch videos all day. There are lots of ads that pop up when you open KCCI8News . You have to watch an ad for about 15 seconds before you can watch the video clip you wanted to see. Half of the time KCCI8News crashes between the ad and the video, but if you make it through the video, it still crashes after that frequently. Hate that I have to literally click on national news to see anything that isn't local. Seems like users should be able to set preferences. Overall it's a glitchy, poorly designed app that I very much dislike.

The old app was way easier to navigate. Straight forward. If I wanted to watch the news, I would turn on the TV. I have KCCI8News so I can READ the news and check the weather. I never know if I am going to get a blaring video that automatically pops up or an actual news article to read. I am not always in a setting where it is appropriate to watch a video. Sometimes the video content and body of written article don't even match up. I want the choice to watch a video when available, not to be forced by pop up. If not changes soon, I will be looking for another source of information.

The only App with Pop-up Commercials! The is horrible, when that happens to me I just close KCCI8News , and go somewhere else for Iowa News.
How dare you waste my data plan minutes I pay for with a commercial. If I want to watch an ad I’LL MAKE THE DECISION. I understand if I pick a video to watch, (commercial first then video) Normally I just turn the volume off, and come back in 30 seconds.
But unwanted commercial I didn’t ask for. Pff…

Bad design and difficult to follow/use.
The most ads for a news group, HORRIBLE.
Takes over my speakers and shuts down my music too, if I wanted to listen to a story I understand. This is the only app I have that does that. Which is why I rarely use it first, I'll go to other Media apps 1st.

Rating STILL has not changed. Too slanted information and not just the facts. Turns OFF my music that I'm listening to, no other app does this, why?. I avoid KCCI8News for news due to this issue while listening to music.
Too many Ads, and worthless news.

Still the same only app to shut off my speakers. Too May ads!!! Silly miss leading headlines.
Oh and now using VUZ, BAD choice how about some national news from CBS.
Still a 1 star, be a half star if they had it.

I wanted to like this. After all, KCCI is probably the best news station in Iowa. But a couple of things ultimately made me delete it. First, when I click on an interest headline to read the story, usually a video starts playing right away that I can’t stop. I often catch up on news during quiet moments at work or when my baby is napping, so I always have to hurriedly close KCCI8News . Sigh. Also I don’t find the main page to be intuitively organized. It’s kind of a chore to find things.

Update June 2020: I downloaded KCCI8News again to keep up with news on the riots. It works great to watch the newscast while the news cast is simultaneously on TV. But if I want to watch anything else, I have to watch at least five commercials for 10 seconds of video. It’s a little crazy and not for me. Will delete again. Sigh.

News coverage is great - no complaints. I would rate higher if I didn’t have a daily internal argument about turning off my notifications. While I do like being alerted to important news items, the staff does not seem to be able to discern what is important and what is not. Not every news story and/or news event is worthy of an alert. If they’d simply ask themselves before sending, “Will the largest majority of our app users see this notification and think, ‘Wow! I’m glad they told me about that!’” and NOT send if the answer is not “yes”, it would easily be a 5 star app.

Until then, just turn off your notifications and enjoy the rest of the features.

The stories are full of opinions instead of facts from both sides of an issue. There are a lot of local stories that are buried. There should be a separate section for stories that keep repeating themselves. Like COVID. It is important and deserves its own section where people know to go. But it should bury important local stories. A lot of stories that have an eye catching title are a disappointment because there is just a paragraph with no explanation or resolution. Odd. The politics are not well explained - what happens is just a regurgitation instead of any well explained issues without opinions. There are no support for people, not politicians.

I get 8-10 “breaking news” alerts per day from KCCI8News and very few are for what anyone would consider breaking news.

This week alone, I received “breaking news” alerts before 7am that were to announce they have a new meteorologist on the morning show, and that a murder from 25 years ago remains unsolved. I can almost set my watch by the breaking news alert that comes as soon as the morning show is done—7:00am EVERY DAY, like clockwork.

I understand marketing, but give me the option to receive only breaking news. KCCI apparently never heard the fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

The old app had the best radar.. not happy with the way KCCI8News uses the radar. Why does it go back 8 hours?? I want to see a more current radar and brighter colors.. and I and I think most of you followers don’t carry what happened 8 hours ago.. I like to see the storms in motion to see what direction it is moving but when it finally gets to the current time it jumps back 8 hours so quickly that it’s hard to see where a storm is tracking.. Pleae,Please, Please get a better radar!!!

it’s neither half-full nor half-empty, sadly.
i am an eternal optimist, which would suggest i would hope KCCI8News will improve, but we are all familiar with the clichéd definition of insanity, aren’t we?
i click on a story, sit through the same 15-30 second advert i just saw on the previous news clip, only to see a report reading the text that is the same that accompanies the video. nothing is there to enhance it. not much bang for one’s advertising buck, either.
not only that, the stories are way too short. please, we’ve paid the price of admission (watching the ads), string together some in-depth reporting not available on the broadcast news.
turn your reporters loose. i happen to know that they are really quite talented and capable of doing more than the scant who what and sometimes where. let’s REALLY make the kcci news app a place where iowans - and others - think of as a destination for true, investigative coverage of local issues that go well beyond the headlines.
the register certainly doesn’t do it anymore.
i would LOVE to see some truly award-winning visual newswork. you have the right people on staff. use them, or sure as heck, you’ll squander those valuable assets.
become a real 5-star operation.
please?

You have some articles on here for a month or more. Move on as it is boring news. Sick of hearing what you think you want to report and not what the public really wants to see or hear. Tell the truth and not your side of what you want us to hear. Same goes for weather as we live in Iowa and winter can be nasty. But employers require us to be accountable. Awhile back you showed a tree blown over and that occurs too. You have most up to date technology for weather but most that I talk to complain how you’re rarely right on that topic. I cut out regular TV and National news because it’s Fake and your opinions. Lots are leaving news all together or not watching as it’s bogus. Fix it before you’re a thing of the past and out of work.

Would like to see Dew Point on the weather hourly or at least once a day on the weather app less commercials and short news time making people wait to see the weather I know your company has to make money and your all greedy and want more and more put the commercials during the sports time
Less sports crap or keep it till towards the end of the news
Sports is NOT important to many of us watching the news we don’t care who can jump or run the fastest
Channel 8 is almost getting as bad as Channel 13
I hope it don’t come to that but if so maybe Channel 5 can keep their act together

Ironic that Report A Bug button is broken? 🕷
Also Report a News Tip button also not working IPhone 12 Pro iOS 14.2.2 (up to date).
Looks like it takes the tap, but nothing happens...
I would’ve tapped Report a Bug instead of reporting it here, but....
I seldom use KCCI8News because it’s annoying with the repeated ads in videos, the length of stories too short, weather page hard to look at (too busy), harder to get to radar (I use NOAA).

I have been a loyal KCCI follower for over 40 years. But, at this time, I am debating whether I want to continue the relationship. I like the reporters and the weather-presenters very much; and I believe that they do their best to provide professional delivery of the news. However, stories I see on KCCI8News as well as advertising on live TV most unfortunately slants to the right politically. What happened to the truth?
Given that all Republican-leaning sponsored political ads shown on your station are full of lies, thereby greatly damaging the credibility of YOUR entire PROGRAMMING, why is it that your advertising department is not required to protect the interests of your station by reviewing the contents of said political advertisements for content, in order to refuse to show such false advertising? I can’t be the only viewer who is changing the station to one with more truth in advertising as well as in reporting.

Maybe it would be smart to reporting fairly! Start talking about who is working for the people and who is willing to destroy America for political gain! So sick of corrupt politicians that have gotten very wealthy and won’t work with the opposing party! So depressing! Maybe you should have more feel good- happy stories! I always love actual news stories but always end with more questions than answered! I also understand that law enforcement have to hold back info! Just remember there are more than Democrats that follow your news and we just want fair and unbiased news and not opinions!

Why must you keep stories the same for a week or more ? I mean seriously is the masked rapper that died that important? Just heard today about the scandal at West Point land it wasn’t from a news source let alone the supposedly best news in central Iowa. Not much changes I have complained bout this before and all I ever get is told to delete and reinstall or make sure I have latest version. So I do it and nothing is different. So from a 38 year old , life long fan and supporter , I m going to be signing off for the last time on kcci . Maybe I ll hear bout some one finally making changes over there and getting the iT department or app people to fix this but I seriously doubt it. So see ya .

I notice more and more the show freezes up as I am watching it or repeats what was just said. The broadcast will show “we will be back in a minute” and be off for 5 minutes or more or totally go off so I have to open it again. Things the live broadcast does not do. I like watching the morning broadcast as I am getting ready and this gets frustrating after awhile!

I like the old weather app that listed all information vertically... it also used to have the temperature in the upper information bar. I am a semi-truck driver, and where ever I went it would update “real-time” automatically. I still have that “unsupported” app on my old phone...BRING IT BACK, PLEASE!!! I was also able to save frequently traveled cities for quick weather reference information. I totally miss the simple effective convenience of that app! Would have given 5 out of 5...

Other than that, I do appreciate the real time updates to the current app. I rely on the accuracy of KCCI weather to plan my routes for the day... it would be quicker with the old system😉

The message chime for news/traffic updates are very effective and timely as well!!!

Thanks for reading, Hope this has helpful! 🙏🏾😀

The ap is good, I use it often. The only issue I have is when I get a breaking news update. It pops up on my phone when it is locked, which is what I want it to do but most of the time I don’t want to view it at that very moment, but usually within a couple minutes I end up unlocking my phone then doing something different, then wanting to go in and read it, but the article is not on the KCCI ap. So I end up having to google it or wait for quite awhile later to be able to read it on the ap.

There are lots of app features that just stop working, and this seems to be happening with several iOS devices that I know about. For example, after you click on the radar the whole screen blacks out after about 4-5 seconds and I’m forced to close out of KCCI8News and re open it. Another issue, is whenever I click on an article KCCI8News crashes. Any help would be great !!

I thought we had enough test kits to test everyone according to our illustrious Governor! My mother is in a nursing home in Ankeny..a week ago they got their first covid positive and it was a worker. I ask an employee who is gracious enough to let me FaceTime my mother once a week if they have tested all the patients..she said only a small percentage have been because they couldn’t get test kits..I thought nursing homes were out top priority?? This is so totally wrong and I’d like you to investigate

I get notified my alerts have been shut off because I didn't open enough notifications. I try to open story notifications only to find I getting taken to the main screen with no hope of finding that story. Just an endless loop of crap. I love KCCI but seriously this is ridiculous. Two improvements: 1) As your audience, I shouldn't be 'punished' for not opening every story. Apparently someone has an bonus riding on the number off times KCCI8News is opened. 2) When a notification comes up it better be the first story I see when I open KCCI8News . It's 2018 this technology exists.

Not sure if spending my time writing this review will make a difference but the new format is difficult to navigate. Some stories are never removed and others seem to be gone in just a couple hours. When I try to search for a story, I cannot find it sometimes and just go directly to the internet and search and then usually able to find the story. When breaking news pops up on my screen, I go to the kcci site and more than half the time there is no follow up to the headline. Why can’t when I click on the headline when it pops up and go directly to the story?

I get notifications several times a day about various news stories and when I open KCCI8News to learn more about the story, there is no story on KCCI8News until sometime later. Maybe it is just my app. If it is not my app, then please don’t send out a notification without a story that goes with it. I just got a notification now. “ police investigating after motorcyclist dies in Ames collision.” Again, notification but no story.

The most irritating aspect of the KCCI app is that it still doesn’t flip over on an iPad. It’s very helpful to have cord coming off of the top of a plugged-in device, and practically every app on earth flips over, but not KCCI. The other item that bothers me is the alerts banner. Far too often, the alert will display on the screen, but when I open KCCI8News from the alert, there is no reference to the alert on the opening page - so you’re left to wonder where it went.

I agree with most of the problems people have noted-two things that particularly irritate me-when I get out of a story, it takes me back to the top of the page every time, then I have to scroll back to the bottom to find where I was. And seriously, are you going to keep that story about kids in Halloween costumes up until Halloween rolls around again? Can’t you find anything more current to share??

The only thing I don’t like is, if you’re half way down the page and you click on a story to read it, when you click back out it always takes you back to the very first story. Then you have to scroll back down to where you were to see the next stories.

kcci needs to stop broadcasting about the iowa hawkeyes and delete it from their news