WVPX-TV

WVPX-TV (channel 23) is a television station licensed to Akron, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland area as an affiliate of Ion Television. It is owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings alongside Canton-licensed Bounce TV affiliate WDLI-TV (channel 17), which transmits using WVPX-TV's full-power spectrum via a channel sharing agreement. The two stations share studios on Renaissance Parkway in Warrensville Heights and transmitter facilities on Ohio SR 261 in Norton, Ohio.

This station was signed on by S. Bernard Berk's Summit Radio Corporation as WAKR-TV, the television extension of WAKR. WAKR-TV positioned itself with a focus primarily on Akron even as it also covered the Greater Cleveland television market. From their 1953 establishment until 1996, the station was one of two primary ABC affiliates within the Cleveland market, current primary affiliate WEWS-TV being the other. Denied what would have originally been a VHF license, WAKR-TV's competitiveness was negatively impacted throughout this era by financial shortfalls and continuous ratings issues, even with a move from channel 49 to channel 23 in 1967, and eventual market-wide carriage on cable systems. Becoming WAKC-TV in 1986 after WAKR was sold, the station remained in the hands of the Berk family until 1994, when it was sold to home-shopping broadcast chain ValueVision. Under ValueVision, the station retained local programming and its ABC affiliation. A subsequent sale to Paxson Communications resulted in all newscast production ceasing immediately upon consummation on February 28, 1996, and disaffiliation from ABC at years' end; these moves made Akron the largest city in Ohio without a traditional television network affiliate or commercial television newscast.

Renamed WVPX-TV, the station became an owned and operated station for Paxson's Pax TV network on August 31, 1998. When Paxson filed an application to replace WVPX's transmitter with one capable for high-definition television, Akron City Council demanded Paxson restore local news on the station or invest in a television news service for the city; the permit was granted after Paxson made a one-time payment to the city. As part of a larger partnership between Paxson and minority investor NBC, WKYC owner Gannett took over WVPX's operations in 2001 and began producing a daily half-hour Akron newscast. When NBC withdrew their involvement in Paxson in 2005, the newscast was moved to local cable and Paxson (later renamed Ion Media) resumed operating WVPX. Ion Media was sold to WEWS owner E. W. Scripps Company in 2021, resulting in WVPX and WDLI being spun off to Inyo Broadcast Holdings.