For STUDIO 47, a leading regional news broadcaster in Germany, delivering constant news for the North Rhine-Westphalia region, the country’s most populous state, is no easy feat. To stay on top of breaking news, investigative journalism, and innovative stories, STUDIO 47 require their newsroom to achieve high output and speed whilst maintaining a high bar for quality and accuracy when producing stories. Since integrating HeyGen’s AI avatars to streamline video production, STUDIO 47 are not just reporting on the innovation in the region—they are making headlines themselves.
‘Our core goal is to free up journalists for higher-value tasks by using AI as a “journalistic dishwasher” – handling routine work so editors can focus on investigative and in-depth reporting,’ said Sascha Devigne, editor-in-chief at STUDIO 47.
Addressing limited resources in the newsroom
With over 650,000 viewers and a news channel running 24/7, limited personnel and technical resources hindered the volume of content that editors and news anchors could produce at STUDIO 47. In the broader local journalism industry, STUDIO 47 have confronted the same challenges facing other media companies: tightening budgets, evolving audience preferences, and rising production costs. Yet, the importance of local news stations and their role in delivering relevant content to their audience remains critical. Sascha is under pressure to help his company and other media companies in Germany weather these challenges.
In a recent blog post, he shares, ‘The economic situation is impacting many regional and local media companies looking for cost optimisation. And since AI and automation can be a quite effective way to cut costs without losing quality, we shouldn't fear them. We should embrace it and make the best use of it in our editorial work.’
Using HeyGen’s AI technology to scale high-quality content
As STUDIO 47 leaned into AI to modernise workflows, it turned to HeyGen to power NewsHub, its newsroom platform. With HeyGen’s features, the team can use AI to create scripts, automate voice-over production, generate AI avatars for its news presenters, and adapt content for multi-channel distribution across television, web, and social media. HeyGen enables seamless narration, increased reach through AI-powered localisation, faster news delivery, and significant cost savings. Furthermore, HeyGen’s API integration works seamlessly within STUDIO 47’s existing newsroom suite of AI tools, including NewsHub, BotCast, and ClipSense.
Given its industry’s dependence on news anchors and reporters, the most compelling feature for STUDIO 47 are HeyGen’s scalable and high-quality AI avatars.
Before HeyGen, producing daily and breaking news was both resource- and cost-intensive: it required dedicated studio time, hinged on limited presenter availability, and involved expensive post-production work. With HeyGen, the team created digital avatars of much-loved TV presenters that were a familiar face to its many viewers.
HeyGen's high-quality AI avatars transformed STUDIO 47's workflow by eliminating the need for studio recordings and reporter scheduling. The AI avatars enabled 24/7 content production, expanded multilingual offerings, and reduced production costs by 60%—ultimately allowing STUDIO 47 to scale their news output.
‘HeyGen have fundamentally changed how STUDIO 47 produce news. By integrating AI avatars into our newsroom, we have redefined regional journalism, making it scalable, cost-efficient and future-proof,’ said Sascha.
Broadcasting solutions for the wider industry
In addition to delivering regional news to Germany’s most populous state, STUDIO 47 provide media production services to customers across Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, including regional and local media organisations, online media platforms, and digital newsrooms. These media production services encompass the AI-powered solutions they’ve developed to empower other newsrooms and media companies. With HeyGen, STUDIO 47 have achieved 80% faster news production and a 60% cost reduction in studio and post-production expenses.
It’s through this partnership that STUDIO 47 can rewrite the approach to journalism — ultimately future-proofing the industry by driving cost savings and building a constant content engine.
