Available evidence shows that the full, specific scenario Friedberg described did not materialize in 2024.

1. Closest match – Channel 1 AI did not clearly launch as a full consumer product in 2024.

   • Channel 1 announced an AI‑powered news network with photorealistic AI anchors and a personalized news experience. Plans called for a FAST channel in February/March 2024 and a dedicated app later in 2024 that would learn viewers’ interests and deliver tailored stories.(advanced-television.com)
   • Coverage throughout 2023–2024 repeatedly describes Channel 1’s offering as upcoming or set to launch, pointing to a 21–22‑minute demo newscast with AI anchors, not an already‑operating, widely‑available consumer app.(cointelegraph.com)
   • Later industry write‑ups in late 2024 still refer back to Channel 1’s 2023 AI‑anchor demo and focus on new internal production tools, not on an already‑launched personalized consumer app with interactive controls.(mediagazer.com)
   • I could not find an iOS or Android “Channel 1” consumer app, or mainstream 2024 coverage saying “Channel 1 app is now live” with personalization features; sources keep talking about it planning to launch, not that it already has.

2. Neus AI and similar apps are personalized news, but not new 2024 launches and not clearly real‑time video anchors with rich interactive controls.

   • Neus AI – News Assistant Video (iOS) offers a personalized news feed, daily short video briefings and radio, and explicitly mentions “video news briefings from AI news anchor,” plus an in‑app chatbot and user‑chosen categories/publications.(apps.apple.com)
   • However, Neus AI’s app history shows it has existed since 2022, with video, radio, and AI features rolling out from 2022–2023 onward, well before 2024; 2024 updates mainly refine personalization and UX.(apps.apple.com)
   • So Neus AI is at best one partial example, not a 2024 launch, and the description does not clearly indicate a fully synthetic, on‑screen avatar anchor with the kind of fine‑grained “tell me less about X, more about Y” video‑presentation control Friedberg described.

3. Other AI news anchor systems in 2024 are either older experiments, propaganda use, or B2B tools, not consumer news products matching the prediction.

   • China’s Xinhua–Sogou AI anchor (2018) and People’s Daily’s virtual anchor Ren Xiaorong predate 2024; Ren allows users to select from preset topics inside the People’s Daily app but is not a new 2024 product.(en.wikipedia.org)
   • A 2024 Guardian analysis and other reporting describe AI‑generated anchors proliferating on social platforms and in state‑backed propaganda (e.g., deepfake “Wolf News”‑style clips), but these are mainly disinformation or one‑way broadcasts, not interactive consumer apps that let individual users dynamically customize a real‑time video newscast.(theguardian.com)
   • Numerous services (VEED, Topview, Elai.io, JustBaat, etc.) let creators or publishers generate scripted AI‑anchor videos from text, aimed at marketing or quick video production. They do not themselves fetch and synthesize real‑time multi‑source news for end‑users with conversational controls over topics and style.(veed.io)

4. Truly interactive, consumer‑facing AI news anchors arrived later and/or without the full feature set.

   • NewsVoice: AI News Broadcaster on iOS, for example, markets itself as “the world’s first interactive AI news anchor,” offering live, up‑to‑the‑minute spoken news on any topic with conversational follow‑ups—but it is audio‑first and its 1.0 release and major updates are dated January–February 2025, after the 2024 window.(apps.apple.com)

Putting this together:

• In 2024 there were demos and pilots (Channel 1) and partial precursors (Neus AI, state‑backed AI anchors, B2B avatar‑video tools), and AI‑generated news clips became more common on social media.
• But I could not find evidence that multiple consumer‑facing products launched in 2024 that: (a) deliver real‑time, AI‑generated video news, (b) are fronted by synthetic presenters, and (c) let ordinary users interactively steer both topics and presentation style in the flexible way Friedberg described.

Given that gap, the prediction that “during 2024, multiple consumer‑facing products will launch” with those specific real‑time, interactive AI‑video‑news capabilities is best judged wrong.