Indian entertainment channel in US for Amazon's Prime subs

Indian entertainment channel in US for Amazon's Prime subs

MUMBAI: E-commerce giant Amazon is planning to entice the fans of Indian TV shows and movies with a new on-demand subscription service called Heera which will showcase serials, movies and children’s content in five regional languages -- Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Hindi, and Bengali.

Heera, meaning “diamond” in Bengali, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi, will have new shows and movies added every month, Amazon says. It’s being seen as the second SVOD channel brand from Amazon, after it debuted the Anime Strike channel earlier.

Priced at $5 per month, the service is being started only in the U.S. and needs membership of $99-per-year in sync with other Amazon channels.

Amazon claims 'Heera' plans to offer hundreds of recent releases and classic titles including the most popular Bollywood films such as “Fan” starring Shah Rukh Khan, “Sultan” starring Salman Khan and Anushka Sharma and “Kapoor and Sons” with Sidharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt.

Heera's regional best collection would have Marathi classic “Mee Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy”, Rajinikanth’s “Kabali,” the best Tamil movie of 2016, and Telugu-language “Eega” starring Sudeep.

For Prime members, the Amazon Channels lineup includes over 100 add-on video subscription services for Showtime, HBO and Cinemax, Starz, NBCUniversal’s Seeso, Fullscreen, Machinima, Warner Bros.’ DramaFever, A+E Networks’ Lifetime Movie Club, Cinedigm’s Dove Channel, CuriosityStream, Comedy Central’s Stand-Up Plus, PBS Kids, Fandor, Cheddar and Outside TV.

Almost all the Amazon services are also available separately without subscription.