US cable group Liberty Global is reportedly in talks to buy a 50% stake in German broadcaster ProSiebenSat1’s streaming service Maxdome.
Liberty Global already owns German cable operator Unitymedia KabelBW and recently bought UK-based production group All3Media and a 6.4% stake in UK broadcaster ITV.
ProSieben recently said it had added a third more subscribers to Maxdome in the three weeks after Netflix entered the German market in September. Maxdome is currently the largest streaming service in Germany, where it competes with Vivendi’s Watchever, Sky’s Snap and Amazon’s Prime Instant Video, in addition to Netflix.
Germany’s VOD market is expected to grow to $600m by 2018, compared to $246m last year, according to lobby group Bundesverband Audiovisuelle Medien.