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As artificial intelligence increasingly reshapes the media industry, TV stations are racing to integrate AI into every aspect of their operations, from content creation to sales and marketing.
At last week’s Local TV Strategies panel, AI Strategies for sales, marketing and operations industry leaders shared insights into how AI is transforming the broadcast industry. The consensus? AI is no longer a future concept – it’s a present-day game-changer that’s already making waves across the industry.
The session, moderated by this columnist, featuring executives from Tegna, Hubbard Broadcasting, Stringr, Magid and Sinclair, explored how stations are balancing cutting-edge technology with news integrity while creating new revenue streams through AI-powered initiatives.
As the industry contends with audience fragmentation and evolving viewer habits, AI is emerging as a critical tool for local news organizations looking to stay competitive in a multiplatform environment. From AI-powered newsroom assistants to automated content creation and data-driven sales strategies, the technology is touching every department for local station groups.
Streamlined Newsroom Operations
Ian Hill, director of digital audience development at Tegna, showed a rare preview of Tegna’s Project Spotlight, a unified inbox powered by AI. “Our journalists are spending up to two hours a day just looking for stories,” Hill explained. “Through our research, we found that 90% of the emails that come into our newsroom are irrelevant.”
Spotlight uses AI to review station priorities and assign relevancy scores to incoming communications like emails, text messages and social content. Spotlight is already proving its value by helping journalists quickly identify important stories. Hill added,