ProSieben buys into online dating

German broadcast giant ProSieben has taken control of online dating business Parship Elite and will add it to its portfolio of digital businesses.

ProSieben bought Parship, which operates the Parship and ElitePartner brands, from its private equity owners for €100 million (US$111.7 million).

The company has been aggressively reorganising and expanding its digital business and has set itself the goal of generating revenues of €1.5 billion from this unit in 2018.

It has also bought the price comparison website Verivok and travel site Etraveli in the past year.

Gunnar Wiedenfels, CFO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media, said: “Following the Verivox and Etraveli acquisitions, the acquisition of the majority interest in Parship Elite Group is the third large bolt-on acquisition for ProSiebenSat.1 Group within the last twleve months, marking another important milestone to achieving our objective of building a profitably growing digital business footprint outside classical TV advertising.

Broadcasters buying websites is an international trend. Last week Australian free-TV broadcaster Nine made an offer for the CarAdvice.com site.