WBAL-TV 11 News - Baltimore

I like getting news stories and things as notifications, so I can just look at the banner to see if I’m interested. I do that for several news apps. I dislike that this is the only news app that then leaves the little ‘1’ next to the app. The only way to get rid of it is to go into the app and find the specific story, then open it. This happens once or twice a day too and is quite annoying. Others may not be as annoyed by it though. Another thing that would help is some kind of filter by topic. The search function is usually decent at this, but it’s not as great at letting you browse a topic. This is just a potential improvement though.

I like this app, for the most part. But the alert notifications are driving me crazy. I have my settings limited to “breaking news” (locally and otherwise) but the notifications that come through are, in large part, completely unnecessary. I absolutely want/need to know about traffic issues, security incidents, and local/city/state/country/worldwide URGENT events and happenings. I do not need to know RIGHT NOW about strange colored grasshoppers in Texas, childhood obesity statistics, and other random human interest stories that you decide to push out for no reason. That’s not “breaking news”. It’s not worth interrupting someone’s job or life to stop and see if there is a problem that needs their immediate attention. If you want to push human interest articles then there should be two levels of “breaking news” options for people to choose. Because I’m about finished rolling my eyes when my phone alerts for the tenth time in a day with unnecessary stories - I’m just going to find a different news app to use.

100% agree with user K2222. I do not want “didja know?” curiosity or human interest stories as news alerts. By overusing news alerts, it’s like WBAL is crying wolf. If something more urgent does happen, I might be dismissive to the sound of the alert. My suggestion is to reduce the number of alerts. Ask yourselves, would you want to be interrupted in YOUR job to find out about something that’s interesting but irrelevant to you at the moment? Does this news impact the local community or nation right now? Is it serious enough that schools might close and roads shut down? Is it of life and death importance for another state or country? If the news is about Prince/notPrince Harry, might be interesting to many, but not worthy of an alert. For improved subscriber service, develop options for the news about which they want to be notified immediately. For example, an interest in politics doesn’t necessarily mean the person wants to track primary results as they come in. Or maybe they do. Creating personalized customer services is the best way to keep current subscribers and to bring new ones in.

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WBAL is probably my favorite news station, but this constant notification asking me to open the app to continue seeing updates is just ridiculous. If I have my notifications turned on AND I go through YOUR app and customize them like you ask us to do, why do I NEED to open the app every so often in order to keep receiving updates? No other app does this and it's highly annoying. I don't need, want or have the time to read every update you push through. Most times the update headline is enough to peak my interest or not and let me know what's happening. I should never STOP receiving notifications unless I turn them off! Please fix this highly annoying issue.

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Sorry, WBAL, I’ll always be a loyal watcher, but this app is so crusted with repetitive, invasive ads that I deleted it. Every story you click force plays the same ad you just saw, unless you scroll fast enough to make it stop and scroll back up. Then there’s ads all through the content, some of it junk syndicated stuff- I know you need to make money but this just isn’t working for me. I’m tired of seeing ads for stuff I was just shopping for elsewhere. And you have invested almost nothing in features around good content. The only use left is school closings and I can get that easily elsewhere. If you put the focus back on the user experience, let me know, and I’ll be back.