McGraw-Hill Finds An Upside To The Energy Crisis

McGraw-Hill's Q2 was lousy, but that's what the Street expected: Revenue was down 2.6%, to $1.67 billion (consensus $1.65 billion) and profits were down 23.4%, to $212.3 million, or $0.66 EPS (consensus $0.65). If you're publishing/media business with a huge exposure to the credit crunch (via Standard & Poor's), things could be worse.

Also not terrible: The performance of MHP's B-to-B group, where revenues were up 7.8% y/y. What was driving that? Not BusinessWeek, where ad pages were down 11%. Instead, MHP says, it's doing particularly well with its Platts group.

What's Platts? It's of no interest to anyone who isn't in the energy business, or investing in the energy business. But those who are are veryinterested -- and willing to pay up for the group's various trade publications. A subscription to North American Crude Wire, for instance, will set you back $995 a year -- or about 250 gallons of unleaded.