Media Mogul Expects Sixth Child

The media magnate Rupert Murdoch is expecting his sixth child at the age of 71.

Mr Murdoch's third wife, Wendi Deng, 35, is pregnant for a second time, a spokeswoman for his News Corporation empire confirmed yesterday. Their first child, Grace, was born in 2001.

Separately, in an interview, Mr Murdoch admitted that he was pondering his mortality for the first time. "Will I be as fit, as intelligent and mentally agile as I am today in 10 years?" he said. "If I feel that way, I'll stay on. On the other hand, if they knock on the door and say, Dad, you're losing it - which they would not shrink from - I'll go," he added in unpublished extracts from an interview with US magazine Fortune.

For years Mr Murdoch has joked that he will carry on "for ever" at the helm of a media empire which spans BSkyB and the Sun in the UK to satellite firms in Asia and the Fox television network in the US.

The birth of his sixth child could further complicate succession plans at News Corp. One of the media industry's eternal questions is what will happen to his empire once he is no longer running it.

In an interview for a book five years ago, Mr Murdoch said that his 31-year-old son Lachlan was leading the race to succeed him. More recently Mr Murdoch has indicated that the running of the company would be shared between Lachlan, his brother James, who is 30, and News Corp chief operating officer Peter Chernin.

Mr Murdoch's other children are Prudence MacLeod, 38, from his first marriage, followed by Elisabeth Murdoch, 33, Lachlan and James by his second wife.

Any quick succession appears off the agenda for now. Mr Murdoch, who has overcome prostate cancer and recently appeared in an Australian-made documentary pumping iron and boasting he had 0% cholesterol, said he remained in the best of health.