Akron-Canton-Cleveland, Ohio United States |
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City | Akron, Ohio |
Branding | Ion Television |
Slogan | Positively Entertaining |
Channels |
Digital: 23 (UHF) Virtual: 23 () |
Subchannels | 23.1 - Ion HD (720p) 23.2 - qubo (480i) 23.3 - Ion Life (480i) 23.4 - Ion Shop (480i) 23.5 - Home Shopping Network 23.6 - QVC |
Affiliations | Ion Television |
Owner |
Ion Media Networks (Ion Media Akron License, Inc.) |
First air date | June 7, 1953 |
Call letters' meaning | PaX TV |
Former callsigns | WAKR-TV (1953–1986) WAKC-TV (1986–1998) |
Former channel number(s) |
Analog: 49 (UHF, 1953–1967) 23 (UHF, 1967–2009) Digital: 59 (UHF, until 2009) |
Former affiliations |
ABC (1953–1996) inTV (1996–1998) |
Transmitter power | 1000 kW |
Height | 301 m (988 ft) |
Facility ID | 70491 |
Transmitter coordinates | 41°3′53″N 81°34′59″W / 41.06472°N 81.58306°WCoordinates: 41°3′53″N 81°34′59″W / 41.06472°N 81.58306°W |
Licensing authority | FCC |
Public license information: |
Profile CDBS |
Website | www.iontelevision.com |
WVPX-TV, virtual and UHF digital channel 23, is an Ion Television owned-and-operated television station serving Cleveland, Ohio, United States that is licensed to Akron. The station is owned by Ion Media Networks. WVPX maintains offices located on King James Way in Akron, and its transmitter is located on the west side of the city, just north of the defunct Rolling Acres Mall. WVPX is the only full-power Ion station in the state of Ohio.
The station first signed on the air on June 7, 1953 as WAKR-TV (for "AKRon"), broadcasting from a transmitter located on the First National Tower in Akron. The station was owned by Summit Radio Corporation, the family-owned business of S. Bernard Berk, which also owned WAKR radio (1590 AM, and 97.5 FM, now WONE-FM). Summit had applied to the Federal Communications Commission in 1947 for a television broadcast license to operate on VHF channel 11, the only channel allocated to Akron. However, before the license was issued, the FCC implemented a freeze on further television licenses while it undertook a study of what to do with the VHF spectrum.
After the release of the FCC's Sixth Report and Order lifted the freeze in 1952, the Commission decided to collapse Akron and Canton into the Cleveland market. It limited the number of VHF channels in the Cleveland area to three – channels 3, 5 and 8 (changed from 4, 5 and 9) and to grant licenses to any additional stations only in the UHF spectrum; the channel 11 frequency was deleted in order to protect what would become WTOL in Toledo and WIIC-TV (now WPXI) in Pittsburgh. Summit was able to secure a license to operate on UHF channel 49.