WSIL Viewers' Choice Awards: How Voting Works & How to Win

A television station's own ballot, not a shared best-of network

WSIL Viewers' Choice Awards is organized directly by WSIL, the television station covering the Harrisburg-Marion-Carbondale market in southern Illinois, through the Second Street platform at wsiltv.secondstreetapp.com. That sets it apart from Illinois programs where a national network like CommunityVotes licenses the ballot software to a local partner: here, the station itself runs the nomination-and-vote listing under its own name, rather than under a shared network brand a viewer might recognize from a different Illinois city entirely.

Two editions are confirmed on the current listing, 2024 and 2025. The 2025 edition, the more recent of the two, opened June 23 and closed September 15. The station's archived date range for the program overall runs from June 24, 2024 through that September 15, 2025 close, covering both confirmed years.

Past that closed window, the listing states nothing further. No category breakdown is printed, no per-voter cap appears, and no 2026 edition has been published anywhere WSIL makes public; confirm on the live ballot each cycle for whatever comes next.

Southern Illinois, not the CommunityVotes network or a Chicago publisher

Several other Illinois readers'-choice programs sit on entirely different foundations than WSIL's own ballot. CommunityVotes Peoria and CommunityVotes Rockford both run through the national CommunityVotes network, licensed to local partners in their respective cities. Chicago Reader's Best of Chicago and Chicago Style Weddings Best Of both answer to print publishers covering the Chicago metro, hundreds of miles north of the Harrisburg-Marion-Carbondale market WSIL actually serves.

Why the station link matters for a southern Illinois nomination

A nomination logged through WSIL's own listing carries no weight toward any of the six programs above, and none of their results feed back into WSIL's own count either. Typing wsiltv.secondstreetapp.com directly, rather than a general search for "Illinois viewers choice," keeps a Harrisburg-Marion-Carbondale nomination pointed at the right ballot.

Two editions, one day apart in their opening dates

2024 and 2025 are the only two years WSIL Viewers' Choice Awards has confirmed. The 2025 edition opened June 23, a single day earlier than the 2024 edition's June 24 start, and both years closed around mid-September. That one-day shift is a small detail, but it is also the clearest evidence available that WSIL adjusts its own calendar year to year rather than repeating an identical fixed date.

Nothing published states whether the program existed before 2024 under a different name, or whether WSIL intends to keep the same rough June-to-September rhythm going forward. A business weighing whether to nominate for a future edition is weighing a two-year pattern, not a decade of settled results, and the sounder approach is checking wsiltv.secondstreetapp.com directly once a new window opens rather than counting on last year's calendar to hold.

That one-day shift between 2024 and 2025 also says something about how closely a supporter needs to watch WSIL's own listing near the usual opening month. A window that has moved even slightly before could just as easily move again, and a business that waits until late June to check risks missing the first several days of nominating if the 2026 edition happens to open earlier than either prior year did.

Real, direct outreach to viewers across Harrisburg, Marion, and Carbondale, asked more than once across whichever window is live, is what actually moves a station-run ballot like this one. Award-vote campaign planning covers how to structure that kind of push for a readers'-choice ballot shaped like WSIL's, and is buying votes legal lays out where an everyday support campaign ends and a riskier tactic begins, worth a look before spending real budget on a program whose next window is not yet on the calendar.

Getting a nomination onto WSIL's ballot is one outcome; the station alone decides who wins once its own count from a closed window finishes. Nothing published describes how or when WSIL announces results, or whether winners appear on air, in a follow-up listing, or somewhere else entirely, so treating a strong nomination push as a guaranteed win overstates what any of this actually confirms.