Vevo, the leading purveyor of online music videos and one of the largest Web video services in the world, is for sale: the company and its bankers have begun taking meetings with a veritable who’s who of media and tech companies that have signaled they could be buyers.

It’s a disappointing turn of events for a company that once had grand dreams of moving beyond music and transforming itself into a major independent producer of entertainment and lifestyle programming. A secret effort to pursue such a path came to naught, and the impending sale offers a stark lesson in the pitfalls of certain types of joint ventures and the collective decision-making that they require.

Owned by two of the three top music record labels, Vevo earlier this spring hired investment bank Goldman Sachs and Raine Group, a boutique M&A advisory firm, to work on a strategic plan and talk to potential suitors who are interested in taking a minority or controlling stake in the company, according to three people who have been involved in the process. The company is on track to post about $350 million in revenue this year, according to a person with access to that information, and is considered a particularly attractive property because its artist-driven music videos command high advertising rates.