Amazon Channels today announced the launch of Heera, a new SVOD compiling Indian TV and films for U.S. viewers.
The $5 per month (after a 7-day free trial) service will offer movies, serials, and kids content in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali, for Amazon Prime members in the U.S.
Heera’s library includes classic and newly released titles including “Sultan,” “Kapoor and Sons,” “Fan” and “regional hits” like “Kabali,” “Mee Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy” and “Eegastarring Sudeep.”
Heera is the second branded SVOD launched by Amazon on its Channels service, which allows Amazon Prime Video members to supplement the SVOD service with add-ons like HBO and Showtime as well as curated offerings from programmers including NBC, Discovery and AMC Networks.
Amazon’s first branded channel, launched in January, is Anime Strike, which provides access to Japanese animation films and series.
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Then-vice president of digital video for Amazon Michael Paull—who recently left the company to lead MLB’s BAMTech streaming tech unit—said Amazon Channels is expanding a bit now that it’s about one year into its launch.
“Our goal is to become a destination for video programming,” said Paull. “We want to have the most possible selections we can have.”
That strategy is modeling Amazon Channels as a complement to traditional pay-TV and a place where somewhat niche genres like anime, and now Bollywood, can enjoy a more complete representation.
Beyond its own branded channels, Amazon is managing to attract subscribers with offerings like NBC with comedy-focused Seeso and AMC with horror-focused Shudder.
Paull said that, based on the success Amazon has had with those initial channels, the company is getting a lot of inbound requests from a variety of traditional and new media organizations and channels that are looking to create Amazon affiliations.