Big News

Houston media company acquires CultureMap with plans for expanded digital coverage

David Gow, Audrey Gow at Big Texas Party, horizontal photo

Gow Media CEO David Gow and wife, Audrey, at The Big Texas Party during Super Bowl week in Houston.

Photo by Jacob Power

It's an exciting time at CultureMap as Houston-based Gow Media has acquired the buzzy website that has become the leading digital provider of lifestyle content in Texas over the last eight years.

Founded in 2007, Gow owns two Houston sports stations (ESPN 97.5 FM and SB Nation 1560 AM stations) as well as one of the nation's largest sports radio networks, SB Nation Radio, which it runs in partnership with SB Nation.com. SB Nation Radio provides 24/7 sports shows and sports updates to over 500 affiliate radio stations across the country, Sirius Satellite Radio, and mobile and digital partners.

CultureMap has attracted a loyal following for its coverage of food, fashion, society, real estate, arts and entertainment, and other lifestyle topics in five Texas cities. Launched in Houston in 2009, CultureMap expanded to Austin in 2011 and Dallas in 2012. Sites in Fort Worth and San Antonio were added in 2015.

The combination creates a multi-platform media company reaching nearly 8 million people monthly, making it what is believed to be the largest Houston-owned media company headquartered in the city.

"It's a great move for both companies," said David Gow, CEO of Gow Media. "It's a chance to create a large media company and offer more to our existing audience and advertisers. The combination of Gow Media assets and CultureMap creates one of the largest media companies based in Texas."

CultureMap will continue to offer premier lifestyle coverage in all of its Texas markets. "We recognize the brand has a strong following that is passionately engaged and we want to do everything we can to preserve that connection," Gow said. “We plan to share content, cross-promote, create bigger events, and provide larger scale packages for advertisers. The opportunities are exciting."

The company plans to invest in software upgrades to enhance the user experience on CultureMap and Gow hinted that sports will return to the mix on the site. "There's a strong intersection between sports and lifestyle content and we definitely see an opportunity to introduce sports content to the CultureMap reader," he said.

The two media companies worked together to host The Big Texas Party during Super Bowl week in Houston. It drew more than 1,500 guests, including Mayor Sylvester Turner and a number of top sports stars, and was generally recognized as one of the week's top parties.

In planning and executing the party over the past year, the teams from both companies found numerous advantages in consolidation into one entity. "Over time, it became apparent that we could accomplish more together than we could operating independently," said CultureMap CEO Robert Bennett.

CultureMap network marketing director Jessica Baldwin has been named vice president of marketing and events at Gow Media. “The Big Texas Party was the first of many events in which we will combine the power of sports and lifestyle content," she said.

Gow Media, LLC is backed by a private investment group with significant experience in media ownership. The investor group includes Steve Webster, co-manager and co-CEO of Avista Capital; Patrick Dugan, vice president and general counsel of Nortex; and Gow.

texas

Jobs report

Texas clocks in as No. 7 best state to find a job, new report says

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

It's easier to find a job in Texas than in nearly any other state.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

job market texas wallethub jobs