MTV’s creative destruction
For those who were teenagers, or in their early 20s, in the 1990s, Quick Gun Murugan was an iconic promotion, and ads that featured on MTV. Back in those days, the music channel was the flavor of the day for the young. Not just in terms of viewership among the young, MTV was a huge business. Sometime in the early 1990s, it generated annual revenues that were higher than $400 million, and reached 115 million households worldwide through the cable networks.
I know in this age, when annual revenues of $100 billion are around, $400 million may not sound big enough. But it was big back then. Sadly, the music revolution led by MTV has come to an end. In the words of the famous economist, Joseph Schumpeter, MTV has become a victim to the ever-continuing, never-stopping capitalist and business process of creative destruction. The owner, Paramount, has announced that barring a token presence, MTV Networks will be shut down by the end of 2025. It is the end of an era.
It is a symbol of the frightening rate at which technological changes are hollowing out entire industries, leading to millions and millions in job losses. The original premise of Schumpeter’s model of capitalism was that there will be job losses as tech advances, but competition, and increased productivity will lead to the end of some industries, and the creation of new ones with higher productivity. The latter will result in more jobs, and perhaps higher wages. This theory has held through for the most part of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, for the past 150 years.
But the fear is what happens if this model of Schumpeter’s capitalism crumbles under the pressure of the ferocity and intensity of tech change that are sweeping across the world. To begin with, the first people or the first set of businesses that may face imminent collapses, and an erasure of existence, will be the cable news networks that deliver both news and entertainment. During the 2024 US presidential elections, it was discovered that a single podcast of a celebrity, Joe Rogan, had more viewers, which was equivalent to 100 times more than the total viewership of a popular news channel that was broadcast through the usual cable route.
This is how fast and rapidly technology is decimating existing and thriving industries. Surveys by C Voter indicate that more than 70 per cent of the young, i.e., people in the age group of 18 to 30 years, have not seen, forget about reading, a newspaper or a magazine. In the last one year, more than 50 per cent have not seen a TV show on a regular TV channel, either for entertainment or news.
The world of the young is more confined to smart phones, memes, reels, and click-bait headlines, which make up for the news. So, there is a genuine possibility that by the end of this decade, not just MTV, but the traditional and the famous news networks, and entertainment networks that we have may be on their way out. Some of them are already dead. This is a real danger, and not just for the TV networks, as tech disrupts businesses across sectors.
The danger for a country like India is manifold. After all, India has a workforce of about 650 million people. No matter how much we try to avoid tech changes, it will force through the doors in the form of Artificial Intelligence, robotics, and hyper computerisation. It will stay on too. In such situations, it is difficult to imagine how industries will survive. Many will die, and new ones created. The biggest question is whether the new ones create enough jobs.
It is a nightmare of a situation. In the tech sector, job losses are common. AI threatens, and continues to, displace more. Manufacturing is unable to create enough jobs. Hence, the question is crucial for us, and the policy-makers. But contrary to a doomsday scenario, this columnist thinks there is some comfort here. No doubt there will be enormous job losses. But let us look at the numbers, and break them down to understand the implications.
For instance, there are 50 million government jobs, and one can add another 50 million stable jobs in the private sector. Most of these may be safe, although AI can creep into government offices, as computers did in the 1990s, and the private sector will consistently juggle between humans and machines. A series of periodic labor force participation surveys indicate that more than 300 million Indians identify themselves as self-employed, which has various connotations. It can be a person running a paan shop, which sells cigarettes, snacks, biscuits, tea, and other stuff.
A self-employed person can be the owner of a small grocery store. She may be someone selling snacks, lunch, and dinner to the poor at street corners. Of course, there is an army of self-employed professionals, who work as masons, plumbers, electricians, wood workers, handicraft makers, and other occupations. These jobs are possibly not going to be in danger because no matter how rapid tech arrives in the form of AI, people will always have problems related to electricity, water, gas connections, and similar issues.
One can therefore safely assume that close to 400 million jobs in India may not be in danger of being wiped out. What about the remaining 150 million? Well, they are on the edge. However, in a low productivity, and low-income economy like India, there is no imminent danger of industries being wiped out, like it regularly happens in the US, and Europe. The challenge for both policy-makers, and employees is the same. It is obvious: New skills need to be acquired. More importantly, they need to be constantly upgraded.
Even more important, the day and age of stable 9-5 jobs, which entailed working for a few decades, and retiring with possible pensions, are decisively over. We are in the age of the gig-work economy, which is here to stay. The faster we realise this, the better it is for us. We will need to work harder, and maybe on weekends. Despite the new labour codes, our professional lives will remain unsteady, both in terms of the jobs, and incomes. We will need to specialise, yet hone the skills to beat tech improvements. AI and robots will take up the low-level, and mid-level jobs, and we may need to upgrade to jobs that involve thinking, decision-making, and abstract-thoughts. It is not the end of the world. It is a new one.
The author has worked for leading media houses, authored two books, and is now Executive Director, C Voter Foundation; views are personal
