Veria Living to get $250 mil boost

CHENNAI, India -- Health, wellness and lifestyle channel Veria Living, a subsid of India's Zee broadcasting group, will benefit from a $250 million content development, production, co-production and acquisition fund. Zee group chairman and founder Subhash Chandra announced this Friday in NY, where he is due to receive the Intl. Emmy Directorate Award on Nov. 21. Veria Living has gone through a revamp and a new lineup will go live in January with programs like "The Incurables," hosted by singer Jewel, and "Sports Dads," hosted by NFL hall of famer Deion Sanders. Chandra said: "By focusing on original content development and production, we're not only looking to build a broad U.S. audience for Veria Living, but also setting the table for the expansion of the brand globally over the next couple of years." Veria Living is carried in the U.S. by Dish Network, Verizon FiOS and Frontier Communications. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com