In its latest stab at cord-cutters,  Dish Network has soft-launched a new device under the AirTV brand that lets users access and stream over-the-air TV channels in and out of the home.

The new AirTV product, a follow-on to the launch of the AirTV Player and AirTV Adapter early this year, is being offered online for $119.99, plus $8.99 for shipping, according to a live web page about the product. Dish is offering a 30-day money back guarantee and one-year warranty on parts for AirTV. The device is also integrated with Sling TV, Dish’s OTT TV service.  

RELATED: AirTV Firmware Update Stitches Over-the-Air Channels to Guide

A Dish official said the new OTA solution is currently available in limited release and soft-launched it to evaluate consumer interest. The company said it expects to share more detail in early 2018 following the soft-launch, making a formal announcement during next month’s CES 2018 likely.

In a different twist, the new AirTV apparently bakes in Sling Media’s place-shifting technology, as the new device, as ZatzNotFunny’s Dave Zatz points out, appears to be a repurposing of the original Slingbox M1 hardware.

That’s key because the new AirTV will allow users to access and stream local OTAs in and outside the home. Notably, viewing OTA signals outside the home is limited to one stream at a time, the AirTV web site points out.

Additionally, users need only one OTA antenna to stream local channels wirelessly to all TVs and devices that are on the home’s WiFi network.

Out of the chute, AirTV works with Sling TV, and has developed apps for iOS, tvOS, Android (mobile and TV), Roku devices, and Amazon Fire TV devices.

AirTV users will still need to obtain a separate OTA antenna and coaxial cable.

Per the specs, the device is outfitted with 802.11a 2x2 dual-band WiFi, 512 megabytes of memory, and two OTA tuners.

Sling Media, the video place-shifting pioneer, has stopped manufacturing Slingbox units, but will continue to sell Slingboxes that remain still in stock, Satellite Business News reported in its January 6 issue.

“That means that once the existing stock of the standalone streaming devices is sold, the only way consumers will be able to buy a unit is through various on-line outlets that represent retailer with remaining inventory,” the publication reported.

Sling Media did not deny that it has halted Slingbox manufacturing, but said that it continues to sell and support the products.

“We continue to sell Slingbox units and support our active community of Slingbox users. There are not any formal announcements to share at this time,” Mark N. Vena, vice president of worldwide marketing at Sling Media, said in a statement to Multichannel News.

Sling Media is selling its current flagship product, the M2, for $99.99, a discount of $100 from the MSRP when the product was introduced in 2015. Amazon and Best Buy are also selling the M2 online for $99.99.

RELATED: New M2  Slingbox Drops Mobile App Fees

Dish Network, Sling Media’s corporate cousin, continues to integrate Sling’s technology into satellite DVR recorders, Satellite Business News noted. For example, Dish’s Hopper 3, a 4K-capable box launched last year, uses Sling Media’s place-shifting technology, which enables users to watch live and recorded programming on the go from Web browsers and apps for smartphones and tablets.

RELATED: Dish Serves the Hopper 3

The report comes amid the rise of virtual MVPDs such as Sling TV, PlayStation Vue and DirecTV Now alongside the ongoing expansion and adoption of authenticated TV Everywhere apps that increasingly remove the need for consumers to use a retail device such as the Slingbox to access their subscriptions on multiple devices when they are in or out of the home.

EchoStar, now the technology and set-top subsidiary of Dish, acquired Sling Media in 2007 for $380 million. Prior to that, Sling Media set the stage for video place-shifting with its entrance at the 2005 CES confab and the introduction of the original Slingbox. Sling Media co-founder and serial entrepreneur Blake Krikorian died last August at the age of 48.

RELATED: Remembering a True Visionary

Sling Media has not disclosed Slingbox sales figures, though Satellite Business News estimates that about 2 million standalone Slingbox units have been sold since 2005. An industry source said that sales figure is low, but also said that small subset of the Slingbox sales base are actually using the devices.

Sling Media tried to target the Slingbox to mainstream consumers with the M2, which removed the need for users to buy the mobile apps for tablets and smartphones that support it, but supplemented that part of the business through the controversial use of advertising. Those users also have the option of avoiding ads on the mobile apps by purchasing the apps separately.

RELATED: Sling Media Defends Ad Strategy

In 2014, Sling Media took aim at the limitations of TV Everywhere and tried to amp up retail sales with a humorous ad campaign that offered a cure for a made-up condition called “Can’t Watch Anywhere Pain” or C.W.A.P.

EchoStar, Sling Media’s parent company, has shown a recent willingness to change gears with respect to retail products that don’t fit its long-term business aims. For example, EchoStar last fall shut down Sage By Hughes, a short-lived do-it-yourself home security and automation service, after the product had trouble gaining traction amid competition from other retail products as well as smart home products and services sold through providers such as ADT, Comcast, Verizon and AT&T. 

RELATED: EchoStar Sets Shutdown Date for Sage By Hughes

Coincidentally, an earlier version of the AirTV Player, a new device that enables users to blend OTT content with over-the-air broadcast TV signals from a Dish DBS Corp. subsidiary called AirTV LLC, used the Slingbox M1/M2 form factor. The AirTV Player, introduced last week at CES, emerged with a new design developed in partnership with Technicolor.

RELATED: CES 2017: Dish Unit Pitches Android TV-Powered AirTV Box for $99

Silicon Valley and the tech industry at large are still reeling from the tragic death of Blake Krikorian, a forward-thinking entrepreneur who is probably best-known for co-founding Sling Media and the iconic and game-changing Slingbox.

I say game-changing not because a billion Slingboxes have been sold, but because it was the launch of Slingbox that, in my mind, really pushed forward the idea of TV “place-shifting,” out-of-home viewing of one’s pay TV subscription, and represents one of the sparks behind the cable industry’s pursuit of authenticated TV Everywhere apps and services.

And the introduction of the Slingbox also put a big scare into engineering circles of the cable industry, which found itself forced to accelerate its thinking on how to beef up its feeble upstream data path just in case the Slingbox became a mass market phenomenon and threatened to put true pressure on DOCSIS’s weakest link. Suddenly, cable engineers were interested again in the upstream-dilating features that came with DOCSIS 2.0.

And the Slingbox also got the attention of programmers. HBO was among those that were a bit freaked out about the Slingbox during its early days.

But behind it all was Blake, who, as everyone who had the opportunity to meet and know him can attest, was kind, outgoing, brilliant, witty, and a true visionary.

And he was always cordial and candid every time I had an opportunity to chat with him. In fact, he never turned down one interview request from me. He was always willing and able to help – whether it was to discuss what his company was up to, or just to shoot the breeze about some trend or technology I was trying to come to grips with.

Sling first came on my radar when I covered the 2005 CES for CED. Sling Media was demoing the Slingbox at some small, non-descript booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Like me, a lot of us there were scratching our heads about what this whole place-shifting thing was all about and what it was going to mean. Someone at the booth summed it up perfectly when he observed: "It's like accessing your television with a very, very long wire.” Bingo!

Blake wasn’t there when I popped by, but it was my first exposure to the product, which I wrote about and promtly went about my business. 

About a week later, I received, out of the blue, a friendly email from Blake, who offered some thanks for the coverage, arranged for a follow up interview about Sling, and, essentially, sparked up what would become a semi-regular dialogue between us in the years to come.

It was then that Blake put adaptive-streaming on my radar. Sling, he said, had developed a technology code-named “Lebowski.” Turns out that The Big Lebowski was a favorite movie of Blake’s and that the film's signature quote  – “The dude abides” – is sorta like a video stream that "abides" to network conditions by adjusting its bit-rate and resolution to the bandwidth that's available. 

And he would always reach out when he was in the Denver area to catch up over a quick meal before he has some real business to attend to. And I remember asking him at one of those meetings if Sling ever planned to integrate its technology into set-top boxes.

In response, he’d offer a sly smile, and say, “It’s technically possible. That’s about all I can say about it right now.”

Of course, if I was paying attention maybe I would’ve been bright enough to figure out he was probably in town to meet with EchoStar,  which acquired Sling Media in 2007 and promptly moved ahead with its first line of “Sling-Loaded” satellite TV receivers. 

And everyone was always interested in hearing what Blake had to say.

Case in point for me was the annual C-COR boondoggle – I mean, Global IP Summit – in 2006 in Athens, Greece. (Note: Arris acquired C-COR in the fall of 2007 and one of its first steps was to scuttle an annual event that many of us cherished. I’ve never forgiven them for that!)

A panel I was moderating there about cable’s pursuit of VoIP services happened to be in direct competition with a panel on the future of video that featured Blake. Being kind, I think we had a baker’s dozen in our audience.

As we depart our room after the session, we notice that dozens of people are just streaming out of Blake’s standing room only session, all chatting away gleefully about all the cool things that were just discussed.

Fighting through the dread of missing out, I and the fine people on my panel just gave each other dumb looks and shrugged our shoulders; we realized we were simply out-gunned by Blake’s electric presence. And there’s no shame in that. Just the truth. 

And Blake never missed an opportunity to show off what Sling could do. That week, in “Extreme Sling,” a blog where the Slingbox community would serve up interesting use-cases of the product, Blake posted a video showing him and his family watching a video signal from their home TV from the comforts of their room in the Astir Palace Hotel in Athens.

The last time I conducted an interview of any significant length with Blake was in 2011, back when the cable industry was stumbling around trying to figure out its TV Everywhere strategy. While just the intro of the Q&A remains, I still have the edited transcript.

He got a kick out of the “glacial” pace of TVE at the time, and again encouraged the cable industry to “embrace” what TV Everywhere could do for them, if they did it right. “It’s the perfect combatant to all of these over-the-top things that we were pointing towards, telling them, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming – whether it's Netflix, whether it's Hulu.”

And it’s all here now. Though Netflix is becoming more of a partner to MSOs, Hulu, despite its linkage to Comcast, is preparing to compete with them with its own live-streaming service.

And he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind about the term TV Everywhere. “Somewhere you had some executive come up with this great term called ‘TV Everywhere’ that's going to revolutionize the world and, meanwhile, I can't tell you how far back my eyes went into the back of my head.”

Though TVE has progressed in ease of authentication and in usage, it still doesn’t provide full out-of-home access to one’s pay TV subscription…because of content and distribution rights, not technology. But in some ways, the original Slingbox still does more than TVE does today. And it’s why I still have one.

We also talked a bit about id8 Group, a smart home startup that was later sold to Microsoft. It started as an app that let Android devices talk to Crestron Systems home control products. 

“I decided to focus on the home automation and media distribution side and kind of build what Home 2.0 should be…It's basically a hobby gone horribly wrong. If I'm lucky, it will pay for one or two speakers in my home theater,” he joked.

In another sign of that prescient view, making smart home products work together seamlessly in the larger context of the so-called Internet of Things is now a key focus, and, as one example, is a driving factor behind Comcast’s recent acquisition of a big piece of Icontrol.

And Blake’s love of baseball was well-known, as being able to access San Francisco Giants games from the road was a major inspiration for why he and his brother, Jason, conceived what Sling later became. 

In a rich bit of fitting irony, Blake noted that he watched his Giants clinch the 2010 World Series against the Texas Rangers on – suprise!  – his smartphone using Sling, because he happened to be attending a benefit concert in Mountain View.

“I was thinking, you know, if anything, I'm so happy that we made this product because I was able to enjoy this,” he recalled. “But it was hilarious because when they won, the 30 people around us were jumping up and down and screaming and hugging each other. But at this benefit concern they had  a bunch of older bands and stuff and Billy Idol was on stage. I don't think Billy Idol was very good, but there was this moment when he got this tremendous applause and I'm convinced he thought his career was possibly renewed at this show. Little did he know that it was this group of folks who were cheering that the Giants won the Series.”

I’m a Colorado Rockies fan, and even when they get rocked by the Giants, I can’t ever stay mad, because every game they play against each other reminds me of Blake’s World Series story.

Blake was a true visionary who was able to look around corners to see what was coming before many of us did. His vision, straight-talk, and camaraderie will always be missed. 

Blake Krikorian, a much-loved entrepreneur best known for leading place-shifting pioneer Sling Media, maker of the Slingbox, died Wednesday (August 3) at the age of 48.

Recode, the first to report of Krikorian’s death, noted that the cause of his death is still unconfirmed, but said Krikorian was “apparently struck by a heart attack while surfing in the San Francisco area.”

Jason Krikorian, who co-founded Sling Media, maker of the Slingbox, also posted word of Blake’s passing on his Facebook page: “As many of you may have heard, yesterday we lost a great man, Blake Krikorian. My brother. My best friend. My business partner. My mentor. My hero. A wonderful father and wife. A beloved friend to so many. I don't have the words to properly express my feelings, or those of his dear family. Thank you to all of the beautiful thoughts and messages to Cathy Krikorian and Blake's family.”

Sling Media made a big splash at CES in 2005 with the original Slingbox, a TV place-shifting device that allows consumers to access their pay TV subscriptions on multiple devices, and helped to establish the notion of “TV Everywhere” well before it was cemented into the industry’s lexicon. In many ways, a retail Slingbox still does more than any TVE app does today, providing access to a consumer's full pay TV subscription rather than a subset of it (TVE is still stymied by digitial distribution rights issues). 

EchoStar Communications acquired Sling Media in 2007 for $380 million (EchoStar split into two separate companies -- Dish Network and EchoStar Corp. -- in 2008). Dish later integrated Sling’s technology in its set-top boxes and now uses the core brand for  Sling TV, it’s OTT-TV service for cord-cutters. Sling Media, still part of EchoStar, continues to make and sell new generations of Slingbox devices and apps.

Of more recent note, Krikorian had been investing in startups such as VR specialist Jaunt, and serving as CEO of id8 Group R2 Studios, maker of home automation software, and was on the board of directors at Amazon.

Update: Gary Shapiro, president and CTO of The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), offered this statement: 

"Blake was an extraordinary entrepreneur and imaginative mind, who envisioned place-shifting content via the Slingbox. His innovative work lives on with the millions of people who enjoy the video content they purchased, no matter where they are in the world.

"Although he was always busy and successful, Blake volunteered on the CTA Board of Industry leaders and was always willing to volunteer by mentoring, judging startup competitions and donating to our political action committee. He achieved success at a very young age, but always remembered his roots and reached out to give a hand to those who needed it.

"Our condolences go out to his family, his friends and all those whose lives he touched."

In an apparent move to make its video place shifting platform more attractive to cord-cutters, EchoStar looks to be developing a version of the Slingbox that would capture free over-the-air TV signals and pass them along to users who connect to the device via mobile apps and Web browsers.

The Donohue Report located evidence of a model in the works called the AirTV Slingbox OTA. EchoStar, the set-top and technology corporate sibling of Dish Network, hasn’t announced plans to introduce an OTA-focused product and whether a new model might also be outfitted with a few extra bells and whistles, such as DVR storage.

Update: Sling Media is not commenting on unnannounced products. Also, blogger Dave Zatz came across the AirTV trademark in July. 

However, a device more tightly tailored for cord-cutters could emerge as Sling Media continues to try to expand its user base. This summer, Sling Media took another stab at the consumer mainstream with the launch of the Slingbox M2, a version that sells for $199.99, but does not require buyers to purchase the requisite mobile apps. However, the M2 does expand the Sling Media’s use of advertising in its video place-shifting devices.

Still, Sling Media and EchoStar might be travelling well-travelled ground amid the evolving pay TV landscape. TiVo has the Roamio OTA DVR and is believed to be working on an OTA-tailored of its new Bolt platform that would not include a CableCARD slot (the first Bolt out of the gate supports both OTA and the CableCARD). Channel Master, meanwhile, sells a line of subscription-free “DVR+” products that are designed to work with OTA antennas.

On the MVPD front, Comcast is testing Stream, a $15 per month no-contract service for broadband subs that will feature the major broadcasters and HBO, and be paired with access to a Cloud DVR. Cablevision Systems introduced a batch of cord-cutter packages in April. 

Michael Hawkey, an exec late of video place-shifting pioneer Sling Media, has left to become senior vice president and general manager of Rovi’s Discovery business group.

In that role, Hawkey will head up the group’s overall strategy, including growth initiatives, product development and product marketing. Hawkey will be based out of Rovi’s headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., and report to John Burke, another video industry vet who joined Rovi as EVP and chief operating officer in March 2014.

Hawkey most recently was senior vice president and general manager for EchoStar Corp.’s Sling Media, the company behind the Slingbox, and before that was VP of marketing and sales for EchoStar Technologies, Dish Network’s technology and set-top-focused spin-off.

During his time at Sling Media, the company introduced several new products, including the M1, a Slingbox targeted at the mainstream, and, more recently, the M2, a new version that drops app fees but relies on a somewhat controversial ad-supported model.

Before Sling Media and EchoStar, Hawkey held exec slots at set-top maker Advanced Digital Broadcast and at silicon provider STMicroelectronics.

Hawkey comes on board following Rovi’s recent renewal with Charter Communications, and as it looks to lock up new licensing deals with its “big-four” -- Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV (now part of AT&T) and Dish Network. On the search and discovery end, the company’s Conversation Services platform is partly based on the “Knowledge Graph”-driven semantic technologies and natural language controls it obtained last year via Rovi’s $62 million acquisition of Veveo.

"With more than 25 years of industry experience, Michael brings tremendous expertise to Rovi and a solid track record in driving digital entertainment software and solutions across multiple screens and mobile devices worldwide," Burke said, in a statement.  "Michael's leadership in successfully managing product development and bringing next-generation products to market makes him well-suited to support Rovi's rapidly growing Discovery business."

“Rovi is redefining the way consumers discover and view content around the world,” Hawkey added. "I am very excited to join the Rovi team and help the company continue to drive innovation and bring value to our customers across the digital entertainment industry on every screen."

The consumer backlash that Sling Media got after it began to run advertising in select free apps has morphed into a lawsuit.

Two Slingbox customers – Mark Heskiaoff and Marc Langenohl – are seeking class action status in a lawsuit filed last week with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York arguing that they were subject to a “bait and switch,” as they began to receive ads without their consent starting in March, noting that they were also under the impression when they bought their Slingboxes that the place-shifting video platform would not be saddled with ads.  All of the paid SlingPlayer apps are advertising-free.

“Sling Media failed to disclose that the use of the product would be contingent upon and subject the purchaser to unrequested advertising from Defendant,” they alleged in the lawsuit, according to the Top Class Actions web site (hat tip: ZatzNotFunny). “Since approximately March 17, 2015, Sling Media suddenly began broadcasting such unrequested spam advertisements to users of its Slingboxes.”

They are seeking an injunction against Sling Media to produce and stream future original advertising through Slingbox without prior consent from purchasers. Per Top Class Actions, they’re also seeking restitution and disgorgement of all profits garnered from ads delivered via Sling Media as well as interest and attorneys’ fees.

An official with Sling Media and parent company EchoStar said it’s their policy not to comment on pending litigation.

Sling Media started to apply advertising to its free browser-based app last October, and on March 17, 2015, began doing the same with its more recently-launched (and also free) stand-alone app for PCs and Macs to users of the Slingbox M1, a model launched last summer.

Sling Media has since launched the M2, a $199 flagship model that uses free ad-supported PC and mobile apps, but does let users purchase apps separately if they don’t want ads). Those who do see ads are presented with a pre-roll ad when they launch the apps, and ads will also appear in the app viewing window. However, no ads are placed on top of the video itself, and display ads disappear completely when M2 customers use the apps in full-screen mode.

Following its introduction of ads in its Web and PC/Mac stand-alone apps for the M1, Sling Media, in its defense, reasoned that the decision was necessary in order to offset the costs of ongoing engineering and technology testing requirements.

Taking another stab at the consumer mainstream, Sling Media has launched the Slingbox M2, a video place-shifter that won’t require users to buy the requisite mobile apps, but will expand its use of advertising. 

The M2 (ZatzNotFunny caught wind of the product a few days ago) runs on the same hardware as the Slingbox M1, $149 product launched a year ago, but M2 buyers will no longer be on the hook to pay extra for the SlingPlayer app for iOS and Android tablets and smartphones, which typically runs $15 per app per device. There’s no recurring monthly fees, and M2 users also have the ability to stream content from their mobile device to Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices as well as to Chromecast adapters.

With the M2, a product outfitted with WiFi and 1080p capabilities that carries an MSRP of $199.99, Sling Media will instead try to make up for that by selling ads that run on standalone apps for mobile device and PCs, as well as Sling's browser-based clients.

Those users will see a pre-roll ad when they fire up those apps, and ads will also appear in the app viewing window (no ads will be placed on top of the video itself, however). Display ads  will disappear completely when M2 customers use the apps in full-screen mode, Mark Vena, Sling Media’s worldwide vice president of marketing, said.

“We think that’s a great tradeoff,” Vena said, noting that M2 Slingbox users will have the option to avoid ads on the mobile apps by purchasing the apps separately.

The ad model isn’t a new one for Sling Media. Last fall, the company started to stitch ads into its free Web browser client and a new standalone PC app for the M1 model. The decision was controversial in that it didn’t go over well with some Slingbox customers, but Sling Media defended the decision because it helps the company offset the costs of ongoing engineering and technology testing requirements.

Sling Media hasn’t revealed how many retail Slingboxes have been shipped (on the leased end of the spectrum, Dish Network embeds the technology in its new Hopper HD-DVRs, and Arris is Sling’s exclusive distributor of a place-shifting device optimized for cable operators and telcos). Vena estimates that the M1 currently makes up about 60% to 65% of the recent sales mix. Its high-end Slingbox 500 model runs $299.99. From this point on, the M2 is the company’s flagship Slingbox model.

Sling Media will look for the M2 to help it gain more ground in the consumer arena, even as the place-shifting platform faces off with multiscreen TV Everywhere offerings. Sling is trying to distance itself by promoting the fact that its products provide users with remote access to their full pay TV subscriptions, including DVR recordings, rather than to a subset of channels and features typically found in most TVE offerings. Last year, Sling Media introduced a consumer campaign that mocked the limitations of TVE.

Looking ahead, Sling Media plans to introduce a free app upgrade in October that will bring its Gallery view to smartphones that shares similarities with the company’s iPad app. The new app will also feature 20% quicker loading and connection times.

Sling Media also provided some revised usage data.

-Of its U.S. user base, 34% of Slingbox place-shifting is to Europe, followed by Asia (32.6%), and Mexico (9.6%).

-The longest Slingbox session recorded so far spanned 12,380 miles (from Asunción, Paraguay, to Taipei, Taiwan).

-About 75% of watched hours via the Slingbox occurs out of the home, and 80% of Slingbox viewing is of live TV, versus 20% from a DVR. 

EchoStar Corp. said the Slingbox M1, a redesigned version of the TV place-shifting device launched in the U.S. last summer, has gone on sale in the U.K. and Europe.

The M1, viewed by EchoStar as an easy-to-install model for mainstream consumers, carries a U.K. manufacturer’s suggested retail price of £129 (US$202).  In the U.K., the M1 is available at retailers such as PC World, Currys, Amazon.co.uk and Maplin, and via European distributors such as Turbosat International Limited, TechData and EET Group.

The M1, equipped with dual-band 802.11n WiFi and HD-quality streaming capabilities, is currently for sale in the U.S. for $149.

Sling Media said its M1 for the European market, like its U.S. counterpart, is not limited by geo-blocking (the inability to access content outside of the country where the Slingbox is installed), and can access all of the content of a user’s pay TV subscription.

Sling Media has not announced M1 sales, but it’s had a “strong reception” in the U.S., according to a statement from company SVP and GM Michael Hawkey. "The Slingbox M1 sets a new standard for ease of set-up and use, while delivering incredible value for the pay-TV satellite subscribers that we have always targeted with our products and services,” he said. “With a Slingbox M1 that has been completely localised for customers, we're delivering the most affordable Slingbox packed with the most robust set of features that we believe will significantly expand the mobile TV and video market."

Sling Media has taken some heat for inserting ads into its free Web browser and standalone PC apps for Slingbox devices, but said the strategy is necessary to offset the costs of ongoing engineering and technology testing. Sling Media does not insert ads on its paid apps for iOS and Android devices.

When I reviewed the Sling TV service last month, I noted that the new OTT offering worked well from a technical standpoint, tying in easy-to-use interfaces that work well across different platforms, whether on the iPad or a Roku 3. But despite those promising, tech-facing aspects of the service, a big question now is how Sling TV’s content and packaging strategy will resonate with the market it’s chasing after – millennials and cord-cutters – and if its lack of features like a DVR could be a big turn-off.

While the free one-week trial and a new Roku and Fire TV device bundle for customers who agree to pay for three months of Sling TV service upfront are juicy carrots designed to draw consumers to the service, it will be telling as we learn about how many decide to stick with the program in the months ahead as Dish Network posts its quarterly results (Dish will announce fourth quarter results on Monday, Feb. 23, by the way). 

But a new study suggests that Sling TV has other challenges on the horizon  – namely market awareness and brand confusion with the Slingbox, Sling Media’s video place-shifting device.

As reported by Variety, Ipsos MediaCT found in a survey of 2,871 U.S. consumers earlier this month that just 11% were aware of the Sling TV service. More troubling is that 67% of consumer in the 18-34 age range – a group that Sling TV is trying to reach -- said they weren’t interested in the product.

Lack of widespread awareness is to be expected in part because Sling TV is just getting off the ground, having announced the service at last month’s International CES, followed by the national launch on Monday (Feb. 9). While Sling TV is getting lots of buzz thanks to all the media coverage, the level of consumer awareness will likely improve as Sling TV ramps up its marketing efforts.  

And there are indications that Sling TV has done well early on, tellingBroadcasting & Cablelast month that “hundreds of thousands of people” had already preregistered for the service during the invitation phase. But, again, what will matter is how many of them Sling TV can convert into paying customers…and retain them.

But straight up awareness isn’t the only issue, as the study also found that 44% of consumers in the 18-34 age group who knew about Sling TV said they were confusing it with the Slingbox. Keeping the brands and products separate in the consumer's mind could become increasingly difficult. And as we’ve wrote about in December, Sling Media will be amping up the marketing for the Slingbox this year using a campaign that takes aim at the limitations of authenticated TV Everywhere services.  Also not helping is the fact that the top-of-the-line Slingbox model is called...the SlingTV, though a quick look online shows that Sling Media appear to be placing more emphasis on model’s previous branding (the Slingbox 500).

Meanwhile, It seems that everyone who has kicked the tires believes Sling TV will need to evolve its programming and capabilities as it moves forward in order to be successful (check out Will Richmond’s review on VideoNuze, which views Sling TV “as fundamentally an old school linear TV service, modestly freshened up with a new online wrapper," holding that the service will have a hard time gaining much traction).

But nothing's set in stone, as Sling TV's service model appears to be flexible so that it can morph and continue to change form. From the content side of the equation, adding AMC to Sling TV's core package is a good place to start. And it’s hard to say if Sling TV’s distributon rights will allow the service to support a cloud DVR down the road, or if Sling TV has any interest in pursuing one.

In the meantime, it certainly won’t hurt Sling TV to look for ways to fill another gap – broadcast – and perhaps hook its wagon to broadband-connected DVR platforms that tie in an OTA antenna – such as TiVo’s of Channel Master’s – or pursue a different kind of device bundle that includes  digital antennas from the likes of Mohu or Channel Master (again). 

Sling Media is taking aim at some of the limitations of today’s slate of authenticated TV Everywhere services in the form of a new, humorous consumer campaign aimed at driving retail sales of company’s line of place-shifting Slingbox devices.  

The campaign, expected to be in full force next year, features the fictitious Dr. Jurgen Tittade (he’s on Twitter, by the way!), who pokes fun at a made-up condition called “Can’t Watch Anywhere Pain,” or C.W.A.P.   

“Those with C.W.A.P. suffer from the false belief that they can watch live television anywhere, anytime they like. The truth is—they can’t,” Sling Media explains on this web site that serves as a teaser for the upcoming consumer campaign.  

The cure for this condition? A Slingbox, of course.

Sling Media, part of EchoStar and a corporate cousin to Dish Network, is backing up its message with stats showing that TVE offerings from several major U.S. MVPDs typically limit the number of live TV channels and other features that are accessible to customers outside the home or are saddled with geographic restrictions (limitations that are primarily due to the distribution rights they have), while a retail-bought Slingbox, when connected to an MVPD-supplied set-top, isn’t hindered by such restrictions.

“C.W.A.P. can lead to symptoms like confusion, frustration, even chronic cable fatigue,” Dr. Tittade explains in this marketing campaign video. “Are you up to your eyeballs in C.W.A.P.? Because, if so, you’re not alone, and it’s not your fault.”

C.W.A.P. “patients” featured in the campaign include “John,” a sports fan who can’t use his TVE app to watch his home team while he’s out of town.

In addition to the Twitter handle, which makes ample use of the #dontgetcwap hashtag, other elements of the social media-facing aspects of the campaign include a Facebook page, an Instagram account, and a presence on Vine, where one can watch several short, looping videos about C.W.A.P., including one of an apparent Denver Broncos fan lamenting: “It’s Sunday afternoon, Peyton’s playing, and they’re showing the Vikings! C.W.A.P.!”

Sling Media is booting up the campaign as the company tries to appeal to the consumer mainstream and expand beyond its current primary base of relatively tech-savvy users. It introduced that broader initiative in July with the launch of the Slingbox M1, a compact, entry-level device that sells for $149.99 and complements the company’s top-end SlingTV (formerly known as the Slingbox 500).  

While Sling Media’s new campaign takes aims at “Big Cable,” it’s not without some irony, because the company is also trying to sell its place-shifting products to cable operators via an exclusive distribution and technology licensing deal Sling Media has with Arris. Those early efforts have focused on the MS4000, a stand-alone Slingbox tailored for cable operators and other MVPDs. At least two MSOs – Service Electric Cable TV and Comporium – have signed up to use the MS4000.

And Sling Media’s campaign enters view as the cable industry tries to improve the image and capabilities of TV Everywhere offerings. Among recent moves, CTAM and a coalition of programmers and MSOs recently launched a marketing campaign aimed at promoting the “tv everywhere” brand and providing recommended practices for authenticated, multiscreen pay-TV services.  

And despite some of TVE’s challenges, which include consumer awareness in addition to broader access to programming, usage has been on the rise.

FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned advanced advertising company, reported last month that authenticated ad viewing jumped 368% year-over-year, with 46% of all video ad views on long-form content (20 minutes or more) and live content coming from behind authentication walls.

Sling Media revealed last week that a chipset from ViXS Systems is helping to power the MS4000 Media Streamer, a stand-alone Slingbox tailored for cable operators and other types of multichannel video programming distributors.

Sling said the network transcoder used in the device uses the ViXS XCode 5190 chipset, which can handle full 1080p video delivery and up to four independent video feeds, live or recorded, to mobile devices.

Arris, off its exclusive distribution and technology licensing deal with Sling Media announced last fall, has secured at least two operator deals for the MS4000 Media Streamer -- Service Electric Cable TV and Comporium.

Sling Media noted that the network transcoder used in its MVPD-tailored Slingbox uses the same baseline technology as its retail products, including the recently introduced Slingbox M1 (a new entry-level model) and rebranded and refreshed SlingTV model.

“Deploying Sling technology is one of the best ways for operators to extend the entire living room TV experience anywhere and our retail Slingbox products have long been a leader in this space. We are pleased to again be working with our long-time partner, ViXS, to deliver this solution to MSOs and MVPDs who are looking to add more value to their current customer offerings,” Michael Hawkey, Sling Media’s SVP and GM, said in a statement. “The Sling Media network transcoder provides a seamless way to integrate Sling technology for new and existing customers, further enhancing cable & telco TV offerings by extending the entertainment experience beyond the living room TV.”

Aiming to bring its video place-shifting technologies and services to a wider audience while still catering to its existing tech-savvy customer base, Sling Media has introduced a new, less expensive baseline model and affixed a new name and new features to its current high-end model.

On the entry-level side, the more compact, eye-catching (and long-rumored) Slingbox M1 (pictured above) replaces the Slingbox 350, while the high-end Slingbox 500 has been recast as SlingTV and been paired with a significant software upgrade.

At $149.99, the M1, billed as a device for the “mainstream user,” comes with integrated dual-band 802.11n WiFi and support for a new, simplified Slingplayer app for PCs and Macs as well as for iOS and Android devices. The old Slingbox 350 model, by comparison, was more expensive ($175) and did not bake in WiFi.

The company’s new Slingplayer for Desktop app also allows users to set up Slingbox products across different devices, whether it's via PCs, Macs or the aforementioned mobile devices. Previously, users could watch place-shifted video on mobile devices but had to use a browswer running on a Mac or PC to set everything up.

Slingplayer for Desktop marks the return of an app-based option that historically was popular with Slingbox customers, said Michael Hawkey, SVP and GM of Sling Media. The new desktop app is free for Macs and PCs, but still runs $15 for iOS and Android. Sling Media will continue to offer a browser-based device set-up and configuration environment, though the company does not intend to add new features to it. According to the company, the new desktop app is designed to get users up and running in less than 10 minutes.

Hawkey said the M1 product and simplified set-up and configuration apps are part of a broader plan to target a larger mainstream consumer that goes beyond Sling Media’s traditional market of sports fans, travelers, and TV enthusiasts.

“I want it to be simple, easy, and used by all,” he said, noting that Sling Media will be backing the new product with a marketing campaign tailored for that broader demographic. “These people have devices, and they want to watch TV. I haven’t reached them before," Hawkey said.

Sling Media hasn’t revealed Slingbox sales figures, but there are “millions” of users in the market, he said.

And Sling Media isn’t ignoring those users, even as it uses the M1 to help it expand its addressable market.

Although the hardware of the $299.99 SlingTV (integrated WiFi, and HDMI output that can drive content and apps to the television) remains unchanged, the company hopes to make the product more attractive by rewriting the middleware and the operating system, and shifting to a richer, HTML5-based navigation, search and applications environment.

Sling Media will use that refreshed platform to deliver its menu of apps, including access to Blockbuster, the subscription-based DishWorld OTT video service, a recommendation engine called SlingCloud, the Rotten Tomatoes service, and Thuuz, a ratings service that tells viewers when a particular sporting event is trending based on its excitement level.

The new M1 will be available at retail stores, at Sling.com, and via Sling’s online retail partners such as Amazon.com and TigerDirect.com on July 20. The rebranded SlingTV product will become available in late August, the same time that existing Slingbox 500 customers will automatically receive the new SlingTV software.