Sling Media
technology company that provides placeshifting and Smart TV technology
Sling Media Inc. is an American technology company that develops placeshifting and Smart TV solutions for consumers, multiple-system operators and set top box manufacturers. The company is based in Foster City, California, and was a subsidiary of Echostar (acquired in the fall of 2007). Their initial product, the Slingbox, debuted on the US market on July 1, 2005. The EchoStar business unit was part of a corporate assets exchange with Dish Network at the beginning of 2017 and now operates as Dish Technologies Corporation under Dish Network.
History
The company was founded in 2004 by brothers Blake and Jason Krikorian from San Francisco, along with Bhupen Shah, who had the relationships to help establish Sling's presence in Bangalore. The idea for Sling originated during the 2002 Major League Baseball season, when the Krikorian brothers, who are dedicated San Francisco Giants fans, often traveled far from home, and faced missing the best games of the season.
On September 24, 2007, EchoStar announced an agreement to acquire Sling Media for approximately US$380 million. Blake and Jason left the company in January 2009.
On August 3, 2016, Blake Krikorian died of a heart attack at age 48.
The public source identifies “Sling Media” as technology company that provides placeshifting and Smart TV technology. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sling, Media and technology.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7540674. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2007, 2005, 2017 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sling Media” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.