The Ernst & Young report on UK national newspapers is available here if you really want to read it. It is worth a look, BUT (…that’s a big but btw) it has the most irritating consultant-style stuff in it.

I know journalists are often accused of twisting quotes, but their liberties pale in comparison to consultants’ ability to manufacture metrics.

Take this example on CD/DVD add-ons:

43% – Ernst & Young employees responding to a recent internal survey who would be prepared to pay for a covermount (Base: 100). In most cases the premium would have to be within £1.

Yup, the consultant writing the report has emailed co-workers to generate some graph porn. Sheesh.

They may not be able to construct a viable revenue model, but they certainly know how to make up numbers.