EchoStar Communications has acquired Sling Media for $380 million in cash. EchoStar took part in a $46.6m funding round back in February of 2006.

EchoStar is the parent company of DISH Network the third largest provider of pay-TV in the US with more than 13 million subscribers.

Earlier today today the company announced that their board of directors instructed the company to consider spinning off its technology infrastructure as a separate publicly traded company.

Doing so would allow the company to separate their satellite-leasing and set-top box manufacturing operations from the satellite TV biz. Among other benefits it would make the TV side a more attractive buyout target for potential suiters including AT&T. Sling offers the company a way to expand on existing set-top box manufacturing, giving them an entry into online video delivery.

For Sling, a company earlier targeted by content rights holders for facilitating the re-distribution of licensed content, it gives them a home where they can improve technology on traditional set-top box delivery and deeper pockets to spend on innovation.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 4:22 pm and is filed under Deals, News, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.