The chairman of a leading music label has revealed how the rise of streaming could have ruined the business.
Lohan Presencer leads the Ministry of Sound label, which was launched in 1993 as an extension of the popular South London nightclub.
It made its name with a string of hit dance music compilation albums which racked up sales of more than 70 million around the world.
Despite being among the world鈥檚 most successful dance music companies, the arrival of Spotify and other streaming services threatened its very existence.
鈥淲e could see what streaming was going to do to the music industry, turning music into a globalised commodity, predominantly denominated by an American army of artists,鈥� Presencer told a recent business growth transformation breakfast hosted by HeyHuman.
鈥淲e had seen the end of the [concept of the] album, very quickly 鈥� and that people were just streaming hit music.
鈥淵ou could see that curatorial brands like ours were going to have no value to the independent businesses.
鈥淭hey might have a value to larger content owners, like big record companies, who could pack those playlists full of their own music and they might have a value to big music services, like Spotify and Apple Music, who could attract users to their services.
鈥淪o, counter-intuitively, with 2015 being the most financially successful year in the history of our record company, we put our label on the market.鈥�
In 2015 Apple Music had approached Ministry of Sound with a view of getting it on to its new platform, but Presencer dug his heels in.
鈥淲e were the largest company in the world not to be on their service,鈥� he told the audience. 鈥淚 carried on haggling and after three months we got nowhere.
鈥淭he last day of conversations was where they said 鈥榮ign the deal that everyone else has signed, or it may have an impact on the other business you have with us鈥�.
鈥淐ould I be bothered to fight back? Could I be bothered to publicise that? Or did we take that as another warning sign of transformative change? It was the latter.鈥�
In August 2016 Ministry of Sound was sold to Sony Music International for $100 million following what Presencer describes as 鈥渁 very competitive sale process鈥�.
鈥溊暇牌凡� is a journey. It鈥檚 not about a destination 鈥� you reach various points along the way,鈥� he said.
鈥淲e spotted, I think, various opportunities and various threats and those things combined force you into moments of transformations.鈥�
Last year Apple Music and the Ministry of Sound struck an exclusive playlist deal which saw the label聽de-list – but not delete –聽its compilations from Spotify.
Apple Music recently surpassed 50m paying subscribers worldwide.