Silvio Berlusconi may be under political siege at home, but that does not appear to be stopping the Italian prime minister’s appetite for expanding his domestic television empire in Spain.

His Mediaset commercial television group already controls Telecinco, one of the leading free-to-air Spanish TV networks. The Italian company is now understood to be keen to expand its Spanish footprint by integrating Cuatro, the free-to-air channel owned by the Spanish Prisa media group, with Telecinco.