Eros International Launches Free On-Demand Bollywood Service

LONDON, February 27: Eros
International has rolled out a new ad-supported, on-demand service that
provides consumers free access to exclusive streamed content from its Bollywood
movie catalogue, with third-party content soon to be added to the offering.

Located at
ondemand.erosentertainment.com, the free video stream will be supported by
periodic advertisements. For users wanting to download and watch movies as a
rental without advertisements, Eros has a paid download model where movies
expire after first play. Alternatively, users can also download and own the
movie to watch through Eros’ paid downloads-to-own model.

Consumers can access the
Eros movie catalogue of more than 1,300 titles, 5,000 music videos,
behind-the-scenes “making of movie” footage, exclusive short-form movie clips
and events such as IIFA. Currently available on the new service are recent
releases like Om Shanti Om, Partner, Namastey London, Cheeni Kum, Provoked, Gandhi
My Father, Heyy Babyy and more.

Eros is in the process of
working with other studios and content owners to offer additional Bollywood
titles as well as TV content on the Eros platform. With Eros recently
announcing the acquisition of a 51-percent stake in Tamil film giant Ayngaran,
the company will also be adding Tamil content to its on-demand service.

“This is a pioneering
model for the Indian film industry and we strongly believe in advertising
supported business models,” said Manu Kaushish, the senior VP of new media at
Eros Entertainment. “This initiative will give our plans to offer free online
content a tremendous boost and benefit consumers largely.”

The rollout of this new
on-demand service adds to Eros’ new-media plans, which included the launch of a
channel on the online video-sharing site YouTube, as well as a partnership with
the Internet-TV platform Joost to provide more than 200 Bollywood movies and
600-plus music videos from its catalogue.

—By Irene Lew