Steve Carell has stated several times that season 7 of ‘The Office’ will be his last year. His contract expires at the end of season 7.

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EW: The Office needs a new boss, should they promote Pam?

Mrs. Halpert is the most emotionally intelligent staffer, able to communicate effectively with the various factions of crazyfolk that make DMHQ so fantastic, but she’s a bit underqualified in the sales department. Plotwise, though, I’d love to see the once-meek Pam inherit the earth paper company, especially because it would give her and Jim something to talk about other than parenthood.

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Associated Press: NBC affirms Carell’s ‘The Office’ exit next season

In the network’s first acknowledgment of Carell’s plans, NBC Primetime Entertainment President Angela Bromstad said Monday the actor’s seven-year run as erratic Dunder Mifflin boss Michael Scott will end when his contract expires in 2011. But Bromstad said the show will go on.

“We’ve been lucky to have had him as long as we’ve had. These things happen when you have such a major movie star in a show,” she said.

In an affirmation of NBC’s faith in a post-Carell “The Office,” Bromstad said the sitcom will remain in its 9 p.m. EDT Thursday time slot. It’s the linchpin of NBC’s schedule on a key TV night of advertising revenue.

The door is open if he wants to make return visits to the show, Bromstad said. He remains in business with NBC: Carell’s company, Carousel Productions, has a TV production deal with Universal Media Studios.

Carell was on vacation and unavailable for comment, his publicist, Matt Labov, said Monday.

Whether Michael Scott’s job will be filled by a promotion from within or an outside hire is under discussion. Bringing in a big-name star is an option, but “it’s not the front-running idea,” said Paul Lieberstein, a cast member and executive producer.

“Right now, we’re still talking about a lot of scenarios. We’re trying to get a sense of what the office is like without Steve. We want to be real: What would this office really do (if Michael Scott left)? We want to pursue this as honestly as Dunder Mifflin would,” he said.

Nobody wants to see Carell leave, said Lieberstein, who plays Toby, the embattled voice of human-resources reason.

“But what we’ll get creatively is actually very exciting. We don’t have to do auto reset at the end of the season, but we get to move on,” he said.

Fans have weighed in noisily about how the show will fare without Carell.

“I hear from both, from people who don’t want to watch without Steve and from people who say, ‘Great ensemble. Keep going,’” Lieberstein said.

“It’s not obvious to me we should stop,” he said. “When Michael Jordan left the Bulls, nobody said the Bulls should stop. They didn’t say, ‘Shut down the franchise.’”

Bromstad said the comedy still garners attention and “has a great patina” and talented cast that includes Rainn Wilson, Ed Helms and John Krasinski.

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