I'm not too worried by the idea that one day all news will look like this, though. These sort of animations are always going to be labour-intensive.
Just think of some sort of Machinima based "gaming" program. Have your basic set of gestures for the actors, write up a little script, have someone control a camera, some voice-to-mouth animation.
Forget about twenty years from now, you could probably rattle off something in an hour or two with a modified game engine.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-22-2004/crash-at...
I did get a good laugh out of the Gordon Brown video. At around the 0:40 mark he punches some guy out in the corridor then throws a woman out of a chair and onto the floor, both accompanied by sound effects.
How about a GTA mod?