Murdoch wants family to succeed

News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch, who began building his media group with the Adelaide News in 1953, said he’d like one of his children to succeed him, amid regular discussions about who will take over at the US company.

“I am sure one of them will emerge,” Murdoch, 78, said in an interview which Sky News broadcast in Australia today. “It would be nice. Every parent likes to see that.”

A committee discusses succession at New York-based News Corp, owner of the Wall Street Journal and the Twentieth Century Fox film studio, every three or four months, he said. His family, with about 40 per cent of the voting rights, will “have a lot of say,” he said.

News Corp President Peter Chernin stepped down this year as Murdoch’s second-in-command, and he said in the interview that he won’t “keep going and going.”

The choice of successor may determine the political stance of the group and whether it keeps running newspapers in the US, the UK and Australia, said media analyst Ken Doctor.

“Any successor will take a fresh look. Economically, he or she would get advice, “Get out of the news business.”

‘Losing It’
The elder Murdoch said in June that he’d made no commitment to make Chase Carey, the chief operating officer and deputy chairman, his successor. He called Carey his “partner and right hand,” leaving room for the positioning of one of his children to assume the top job.

Murdoch has six children, including Prudence, Lachlan, James and Elisabeth from his first two marriages. He also has two young daughters with Wendi Deng, a former executive from his Asia Star TV whom he married in 1999.

“When I start to lose it, my kids will be telling me about it,” Murdoch said in the interview, when asked how long he would continue in the role.

James Murdoch, 36, is seen by some investors as next in line to succeed his father and leads News Corp’s European and Asian operations. Lachlan Murdoch, the eldest son, unexpectedly quit as chief operating officer of News Corp in July 2005 and moved to Australia with his wife Sarah and son Kalan.

“I hope he’ll come back one day,” Murdoch said today.