The Cult of Bronfman is back. This time Business 2.0 magazine is singing Warner Music Group's digital praises. Why?

"Its first-fiscal-quarter revenues were off 4 percent. But Warner has captured an outsize portion of the growing digital pie, commanding 17 percent of the CD market in the United States, but an almost 23 percent share of the sale of digital albums."

I've gotta hand it to WMG's Investor Relations people. They're realling spinning this story well. Pulling out digital album market shares? If only the rest of the company were that innovative. The thing is that digital album sales are not representative of the U.S. digital music market. Why is Paul Sloan giving these numbers to readers?

Here's all the three main points to keep in mind about WMG:

(1) WMG's digital sales were 7% of total sales last quarter. That's pretty average. Maybe half a tick better than average. But certainly nothing that deserves this much praise in business magazines.
(2) It wouldn't be a stretch to say the company's physical sales are underperforming, which in turn makes average to slightly good digital sales look even better.
(3) Last quarter net income was slightly up while revenues were down 4%. Digital is not replacing the loss of income due to sagging CD sales.

Related: Last week Coolfer pointed out the flaws in The Motley Fool's article that hyped WMG's digital performance and outlook.