Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- 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 U.S. company.

“I am sure one of them will emerge,” Murdoch, 78, said in an interview with 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 percent of the voting rights, will “have a lot of say,” he said.

News Corp. President Peter Chernin stepped down this year as the company’s second-in-command, and Murdoch 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 U.S., the U.K. and Australia, said media analyst Ken Doctor. “Does a post-Rupert News Corp. hold on to the newspapers or say, ‘that’s really not a business we want to be in?’” said Doctor, who leads news publishing analysis and research at Outsell Inc. in Burlingame, California. “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. Lachlan this week paid A$23 million ($21 million) to buy France’s former consulate in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, setting an Australian auction record for a single house.

Company Building

Born in Melbourne, Rupert Murdoch built News Corp. into a global media company with assets including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the MySpace social-networking Web site, after inheriting Adelaide newspaper assets from his father, Keith.

Murdoch, who this week raised News Corp.’s full-year forecast after reporting an 11 percent increase in first-quarter profit, said in the interview the subscription model for the company’s Wall Street Journal Web site “may be” rolled out to other sites.

Users might read the first paragraph of stories for free online, and then be charged to see more, he said.

“We’ll take that slowly,” he said. “It costs us a lot of money to put together good newspapers and good content, and they’re very happy to pay for it when they buy a newspaper. When they read it elsewhere, they’re going to have to pay. Not huge sums. You’d be surprised how much can be done how cheaply.”

Insufficient Advertising

Murdoch is seeking to be paid more for content as income from advertisers drops. Industrywide ad sales plunged 29 percent in the first six months of this year, Newspaper Association of America data show. Murdoch is also asking for retransmission fees from television providers that carry the New Corp.’s Fox broadcast network.

Still, Murdoch didn’t call an end to the newspaper business. They will be around for at least another 20 years, he said.

“There are no news Web sites anywhere in the world that make serious money,” he said in the interview. “There’s not enough advertising in the world to make all the Web sites profitable. We’d rather have fewer people on our Web site that pay.”

News Corp. and its subsidiaries, including Dow Jones, compete with Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, in providing financial news and information.

Asked to comment on the political stance of his U.S. television channel, Fox News, Murdoch rejected accusations that the station is a political opponent of U.S. President Barack Obama and an arm of the Republican Party.

‘Strongly Critical’

“Nonsense,” said Murdoch, who obtained U.S. citizenship in 1985. “We do have, it’s perfectly true, a couple of commentary shows in the evening which tend to be strongly critical.”

Still, he told Sky News that Obama’s 10-month-old presidency is going “badly.” Unemployment, the economic slowdown and the perception that the administration is “somewhat anti-business” are stifling corporate expansion, he said. Obama needs to change regulation in some areas, Murdoch said in the interview, without being specific.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is “very able,” though he may be keener to govern the world than his own country, Murdoch said. Australia should be more willing to welcome immigrants, he said in comments on the government’s policy on asylum seekers.

Last Updated: November 7, 2009 00:53 EST