There is no press release planned for this news but I wanted to pass it along to our readership in any case. After seven years of owning and operating In Contention, first as a blogspot thingamajig, then guiding the .com forward as (I think) one of the preeminent awards season outlets in the space, I’m happy to announce that our little company has been formally acquired by HitFix.

The final signatures were committed to paper just after Telluride, which is serendipitous as at last year’s fest, just before the premiere of “Albert Nobbs,” Greg Ellwood first bent my ear and told me his ideas. Then, three swift weeks later — a year ago today, in fact — we officially hitched our wagon to HitFix.

These last 12 months have been kind of a trial run, if you will. And it’s been a wonderful experience, a great partnership and a solid foundation on which to build a more permanent and organic relationship. Handing over something you’ve built from the ground up is a scary thing, but I can’t think of a better, more fiercely competitive and consistently growing outlet to have bought In Contention.

And no, nothing’s changing. I’m not going anywhere. Guy’s not going anywhere. Gerard’s not going anywhere. If anything, the coverage will get more angles. Greg Ellwood’s material will be folded in here (as you’ve seen) and some of the other members of the HitFix team may have things to offer, hands to lend as the season really heats up.

So with that, I’m looking forward to moving ahead as HitFix’s Editor-at-Large, overseeing the awards coverage of the site and continuing to be dominant in the face of a game that wasn’t much more than a few amateur outlets when I first started doing it 11 years ago.

Wow. 11 years. Time flies.