InContention Moves to Hitfix

Kris Tapley’s InContention, it was announced this morning, will move to Hitfix.com as early as Monday.  This is a shakeup in the Oscar world to a minor degree, as Tapley will be doing the same thing he’s always done, with his main writer Guy Lodge along, only it will be over at incontention.hitfix.com (or some URL to that effect).

It was announced earlier that Scott Feinberg left his own site, Scottfeinberg.com, to become the writer for The Race over at The Hollywood Reporter, so that’s two independent Oscar bloggers who now join much bigger sites.  It’s an interesting turn of events in any case.

Tapley, who has been on the Oscar beat almost as long as I have (and Tom O’Neil), feels like family in many ways as I’ve watched him grow up from a near-teenager to now a man about to get married.  I think there is no one better at predicting the Oscars than Tapley, save for maybe Steve Pond, Pete Hammond and Dave Karger – put Anne Thompson in the mix and maybe you have the all-stars of predicting.  Hitfix is lucky to have him to cover the Oscars.  Hitfix itself is growing bigger every day, formed by Gregory Ellwood, its main star right now is Drew McWeeny.

“It’s so very gratifying to see my six-year labor of love plugged into an impressive infrastructure like HitFix,” Tapley said. “In Contention has always been about establishing a conversation throughout the awards season, with fans and industry insiders alike, and as a part of HitFix, that conversation will only grow. I look forward to tapping an even wider audience and bringing the In Contention community into this new and exciting phase.”

“Kris and his longtime contributor Guy Lodge are smart and insightful pundits who are respected throughout the industry. I’m incredibly excited to have their cinematic opinions incorporated into the HitFix mix,” Ellwood said. “This partnership will make HitFix the premier destination for awards season coverage online.”

In Contention was founded by Kristopher Tapley in 2005. Formerly a seasonal outlet purely focused on the Oscar race, the site bridged the gap with consistent off- season commentary and industry coverage in early 2008 after exclusively covering the film awards season for three years on the web. Regular contributors include Guy Lodge and Gerard Kennedy.

We wish Kris the very best and know he’ll do good work no matter where he lands.

As for AwardsDaily, we’ve had offers to move elsewhere but prefer to remain independent.