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Yesterday Time Inc. confirmed the simmering rumor and announced that Jim Kelly, the managing editor of Time magazine for the last five years, will be moving up to the 34th floor, where he'll take the office next to EIC John Huey and a newly created title, managing editor of Time Inc. The remaining question: Who will be the new editor of Time?

Today's Observer says that news will come this morning; Women's Wear specifies it'll come at Time's 10 a.m. meeting, starting momentarily. So, who?

Mediaweek's Stephanie Smith and Lisa Granatstein said yesterday that the likely inside candidate is Priscilla Painton, currently an executive editor at the mag. But the Observer throws water on that pick:

Ms. Painton would, however, be a surprising choice in her own right: In a 2002 profile of Mr. Huey for GQ, writer Maximillian Potter reported that a Bronxville feud between Mr. Huey's wife and Ms. Painton—"over child-rearing techniques"—had ended with the Huey family relocating to South Carolina and Mr. Huey commuting home from New York on weekends.

Indeed, the pink paper's sources suspect think it'll be a splashy outsider. "I think they want big pop," a "Time Inc. insider" tells Tom Scocca.

In WWD, Jeff Bercovici and Sara James cover all the corners. Possibilities include, they say:

Time's own Stephen Koepp, Priscilla Painton and Michael Duffy; Kurt Andersen; Richard Stengel; Eric Pooley; Rick Tetzeli; Terry McDonell; Adam Moss; Jon Meacham; Jacob Weisberg; Michael Kinsley; Tina Brown and, perhaps most implausibly, former executive editor of The New York Times Howell Raines.

But they also quote Kelly narrowing that field:

Time is a mass magazine, and its primary audience is not New York," he said. "It has to be seen as a magazine that isn't unduly partisan in either direction. There are candidates that have made their reputations on being either highly New York-centric or politically plugged into one or the other party. With that in mind, it narrows the field somewhat."

So that would seem to knock out, say, Kurt Andersen, Adam Moss, Jake Weisberg, and Mike Kinsley. (Not that we'd expect any of those were serious candidates anyway, for a variety reasons.) Who's left? We'll find out momentarily.

Memo Pad [WWD]
Off the Record [NYO]
Time's Kelly Upped to Corp. ME