The irritation in Sir Crispin Davis's voice broke through his polished self-discipline: "I have spoken to analysts who say they like the stock, but it is their company policy to be underweight on media companies."

When the chief executive of Reed Elsevier spoke to the Financial Times a fortnight ago, it was with frustration born of running a successful company in a failing industry. Few sectors of the UK corporate environment have been hit harder than media: share prices have halved since May 2007.