MILAN, March 18 (Reuters) - As the main investor in ProSiebenSat.1, commercial broadcaster MFE-MediaForEurope is keen to help spur growth at the German business, the head of MFE was quoted as saying on Monday.

MFE CEO Pier Silvio Berlusconi reinforced his call for ProSieben to focus on its core TV operations and move away from online dating and e-commerce activities.

"They need to understand there is a shareholder that owns almost 30%, and operates in their same business. We don't want to conquer just to conquer, we want to promote growth," Berlusconi told Corriere della Sera daily.

MFE, which is controlled by the family of the late Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, operates commercial TV businesses in Italy and in Spain, where the CEO said ad sales would grow 5% annually in the first quarter.

MFE first invested in ProSieben in 2019 as part of a strategy to create a pan-European TV platform, which it sees as the response to the increasing dominance of U.S. streaming giants such as Netflix and the flight of advertising budgets to the likes of Facebook.

With Germany's economy in the doldrums, ProSieben suffered a series of setbacks in 2023, slashing its dividend and lowering revenue targets before announcing a write-off on programming assets in December.

"Germany is going through a difficult phase, but it will start recovering and we need to be ready", Berlusconi said.

"ProSieben must return to its core business. The first step should be to spin off its dating and e-commerce operations to extract value," he said ahead of the Germany company's annual meeting next month.

Asked about whether a buyout offer for ProSieben was on MFE's agenda, Berlusconi indicated that could only be a possibility when ProSieben hived off its non-core operations.

"A takeover offer also covering businesses which we know little about? And that have little to do with our core business?," he said, without elaborating.

(Reporting by Elvira Pollina, writing by Valentina Za; editing by Giulia Segreti and Keith Weir)