Sling Media, maker of the Slingbox family of TV-on-your-notebook devices, has lost its top, with five executives departing from the company.

Sling's sibling co-founders CEO Blake Krikorian and executive veep Jason Krikorian have left along with Sling's chief creative officer Ben White, entertainment group president Jason Hirshhorn, and veep of sales Gregg Wilkes.

Blake Krikorian told the Mercury News that he and his brother decided to bail from Sling jointly — but held the announcement until after the Consumer Electronics Show. His reason for leaving is that he and his brother prefer running their own business.

"It means something when you sell a company: It's no longer your company," Krikorian told Mercury News. "As much as I love the team and am incredibly excited about what they're doing, it's no the best fit for me, for where I am in my life."

The company hasn't officially announced the departure, so it's still unclear who will be taking the reigns in 2009. ®

Related stories

• Judge orders Echostar to disable set-top DVR (3 June 2009)
• Sling shoots AppleTV rival into UK stores (9 October 2008)
• Apple challenges Reg to patent duel (8 August 2008)
• CES Sling reschedules, redesigns SlingCatcher (7 January 2008)
• Sling unveils 1080i-streaming Slingbox ahead of CES (4 January 2008)
• Review Slingbox Pro networkable TV tuner (19 October 2007)
• Review Slingbox Solo TV-over-the-net device (8 October 2007)