Big Lou Holdings

Local. Independent. Culturally Engaged.

Big Lou Holdings, LLC is the parent company to media properties in four US markets including St. Louis, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Louisville. Collectively, Big Lou reaches 2.5+ million monthly website visitors, 800K+ million social media followers and has existing relationships with thousands of local SMBs. We also publish well-established magazines in each market and produce more than 25 cultural events and festivals annually.

BLH properties are the original local marketing solution. Our publications have decades of reader and advertiser relationships in our markets, and our longevity speaks to the journey we’ve created for our advertisers. We’ve guided local businesses through print, early digital, advanced digital, special issues, event sponsorships, programmatic, and other digital solutions, creating full-funnel media programs to achieve client success.

The Riverfront Times was founded in 1977 as St. Louis's alternative newsweekly. Since then, we've cultivated an audited weekly circulation of 55,000. Because of the pass-along nature of the RFT, our weekly reach is near 200,000 readers.

The Riverfront Times focuses on the issues that are important to St. Louis's young adults. Each week, hundreds of thousands of readers turn to the RFT for award-winning journalism, powerful investigative reporting, news and commentary on local politics, and the most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage in the St. Louis area.

As the intelligent, aggressive and entertaining newspaper of St. Louis, the RFT has received considerable recognition, including more than three dozen awards from the Missouri Press Association, along with the group's Gold Cup, awarded to the best weekly in the state.

Since 1980, Metro Times has been Detroit’s premier alternative source for news, arts, culture, music, film, food, fashion and more from a liberal point of view.

More than 523,000 loyal print and 400,000 digital readers look to us every month to find out what to do, where to go, and who to see in and around the Motor City.

Hard-hitting journalism, in-depth profiles of local artists, musicians, and cultural icons — and the area’s most comprehensive club and concert listings — have made MT the most sought after news and entertainment resource for metro Detroiters, ex-pats, and other carpetbaggers keen on being plugged in to what drives the city that drives the world.



Cincinnati — Porkopolis, the Queen City, birthplace of goetta, the nation’s largest Oktoberfest, Jerry Springer — the city we love and the place we live, work and play.

CityBeat serves as a bastion of informed analysis, offering engaging, enlightening and entertaining writing and reporting from an award-wining staff of journalists, newshounds, critics and columnists. Our news team diligently works to uncover and analyze important issues facing the community, including politics, race, gender, human rights and quality of life issues, while our arts and culture sections offer a broad look at innovative projects and the individuals behind them. CityBeat’s writers bring their institutional knowledge of the city to bear on these issues and countless others — in witty, engaging and often irreverent style.

The Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO) was founded in 1990 as a free source of a wide range of opinions and commentary on current affairs, as well as a guide to local and regional entertainment and recreation opportunities. 

Through the years, LEO Weekly has evolved into the area’s most urbane and challenging newsweekly, including reportage on topics often avoided by mainstream media.

In addition, LEO Weekly publishes only locally written reviews of books, movies, theater and other artistic performances, musical recordings and local musicians. 

LEO Weekly is distributed free every Wednesday through a network of more than 250 locations in Louisville and Southern Indiana. LEO Weekly is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.

Out In STL is the queer magazine for all of St. Louis. We cover the news, politics, people, and trends that matter to STL’s LGBTQ communities and allies.


We publish four print issues each year:

Out In STL is a publication of Big Lou Holdings. We are designed, written, and produced in St. Louis, Missouri.