979 KICK-FM Townsquare Media Choice Awards: How Voting Works & How to Win

What are the Townsquare Media Choice Awards, and who runs them?

The Townsquare Media Choice Awards are a community honors programme for local businesses, staged by 979 KICK-FM, a radio station whose studios stand in Quincy, Illinois. Rather than renting a third-party polling service, the station keeps the entire ballot inside 979kickfm.com, so the broadcaster promoting the awards and the site carrying the vote are one and the same operation.

The market the awards serve is the Tri-State Area, and the station puts the question bluntly on its page: who deserves the crown among the region's local businesses? The shape is a familiar best-of format, a nomination round followed by a public vote, but pointed at favorite businesses rather than at people, teams or photographs.

Because the station doubles as the host, everything a supporter needs, from the nomination form to the voting round, stays inside a single domain rather than spreading across an outside platform.

Which dates and editions are set for the 2026 cycle?

979 KICK-FM published its opening announcement on January 19, 2026, titled Nominations Now Open For The Townsquare Media Choice Awards, and it brands the programme the "1st Annual" edition. The dates it prints are narrow but firm: nominations are accepted through February 6, and voting in each category begins on February 9.

The announcement stops short of a closing day for the voting round, so the end of the window is knowable only from the ballot itself. A closing day matters to anyone planning reminders, so treat the printed finish as open until the page says otherwise.

This is the first confirmed edition; whether it returns next year is not yet published; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Read together, the printed dates form the fixed spine of the 2026 cycle, and everything the announcement leaves open settles on the live page once voting is under way, with the station's own follow-up posts the likeliest place any end date will surface.

How does a supporter cast a vote in the Choice Awards?

The practical route runs through the station's own domain. The 2026 ballot sits at 979kickfm.com/townsquare-media-choice-awards-nominations-2026/, and while the nomination round is open the page accepts names of deserving Tri-State Area businesses through February 6. From February 9 the same corner of the site turns to voting in each category.

A few things the announcement leaves open deserve spelling out. Whether casting a choice requires signing in is not addressed. Whether the ballot behaves differently in a phone browser is likewise unstated, though nothing on the page restricts devices. Nomination wording asks simply for deserving local businesses, leaving the judgment of what deserves the crown to whoever submits, and the arrangement of categories surfaces only when the voting round itself goes live.

Supporters weighing broader options around public ballots, paid ones included, can read a neutral treatment at this overview of buying votes online.

How does this ballot compare with other Illinois vote programmes?

Illinois already carries a crowded field of public votes, and the Choice Awards sit inside it with a distinct profile. Neighbours on this site include the BAGI Parade of Homes People's Choice, the Sauk Valley Favorites round in Sterling, the Chicago Reader's Best of Chicago, Chicago Style Weddings Best Of, and the CommunityVotes programmes in Peoria and Rockford. Each of those programmes runs on its own calendar and its own rule sheet.

What separates the Choice Awards from every neighbour listed above is its steward and its subject. 979 KICK-FM broadcasts from Quincy, while the others anchor themselves in Chicago, Sterling, Peoria or Rockford, and every honour the station hands out goes to a business serving the Tri-State Area.

Category handling differs too: some neighbours publish their rosters up front, while the Choice Awards reveal theirs only when voting opens. Rules printed on any of these ballots never transfer automatically to another, since each organizer maintains its own page, its own categories and its own wording, so a habit picked up on a different Illinois vote cannot simply be carried over to the station's ballot.

What helps a nominated business earn support in this vote?

A nominated business's strongest asset in this programme is its own customer base, and the calendar hands that base a clear signal: voting opens in every category on February 9, 2026. Asking patrons directly, posting the station's ballot link where regulars already follow the business, and reminding people while the window is open cost nothing and fit a station-run ballot well.

Because 979 KICK-FM has printed no statement on outside assistance, a business weighing paid support should read the ballot's own wording first and then consult impartial material such as this guide to earning more votes online. No vote service can promise a result in a public poll, and none substitutes for the plain arithmetic of actual customers backing the business on the station's page.