INTERNET retail giant Amazon is extending its on-demand business by offering thousands of films and TV shows online to the UK.
More than 15,000 films and TV episodes will be available to customers who sign up for its Prime Instant Video service.
The move will be seen as a direct rival to streaming service Netflix, which has been a critical and commercial success - notably with its Kevin Spacey remake of UK drama House Of Cards.
The new creation is a combination of the current Prime service, which offers next-day delivery and a Kindle library, with streaming service LoveFilm, which Amazon owns.
Viewers will be able to rent or buy films and TV shows, including The Walking Dead and Vikings, on devices including iPads, Kindle Fire, Xbox and smart TVs.
The service, which costs £79 a year, also allows viewers to watch original Amazon shows, such as political drama Alpha House. It launches next Wednesday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article