Japan's Fuji TV "Full introduction of AI in drama production...Saving production costs and time"

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Byeong-gyu = Fuji Television, one of Japan's major terrestrial private broadcasters, has decided to fully introduce artificial intelligence (AI) in drama production.

The Nippon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) reported on the 6th that Fuji Television, a subsidiary of Fuji Media Holdings, plans to use generative AI in the production of all live-action dramas starting in October of next year.

Google's video creation tool 'Nano Banana' is used in drama production. Fuji Television established a new team last September and received technology from an AI video production company.

The company is already using AI in the production of the currently airing drama '24 Hour Lifesaving Ward'. The blood gushing out during the surgery scene was created using AI.

In the past, when depicting similar scenes, we directly filmed liquid spewing out or used visual effects (VFX), but the use of AI was able to reduce the time by 70-80% compared to VFX work.

Fuji Television expects that production costs will be reduced through the use of AI.

In fact, in '24 Hour Lifesaving Ward', aerial shots of the explosion accident site were created with AI rather than using a helicopter.

According to Nikkei, Japanese terrestrial broadcasting stations are experiencing a decline in advertising revenue due to the loss of viewers in the mobile era. Accordingly, as production costs decreased, the broadcast program production costs of five commercial broadcasting companies last year (April 2025 to March 2026) decreased by 12% compared to 9 years ago.

Fuji Television is the first Japanese broadcasting station to use AI in all drama productions, and the use of AI is expected to spread to other broadcasting stations. TBS' 'VIVANT' and Nippon TV's 'Tokyo Mykoninja' have already used AI in their production.

Previously, online video service (OTT) Netflix announced in July that AI was used mainly for editing and processing in about 300 works.

It also announced guidelines prohibiting the input of personal data and unauthorized use of actors' portraits and voices, and Fuji Television also has a policy that actors' faces should not be learned when using AI.