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

The confirmed numbers behind WCBI Viewers' Choice Awards

Six. That is how many editions of WCBI Viewers' Choice Awards have actually run, one every year from 2021 through 2026, each posted at its own address on wcbi.secondstreetapp.com. WCBI-TV runs the ballot itself, hosted through the Second Street platform used by television and radio stations across the country for exactly this kind of readers'-choice program.

The most recent round, the 2026 edition, opened December 31, 2025 and closed May 1, 2026. Second Street lists it as a single combined ballot rather than a separate nomination round followed by a separate voting round, meaning the whole process runs on one page and one set of dates.

The ballot page lists no category roster and no per-supporter limit; confirm on the live ballot each cycle, since neither has shown up on any of the six editions reviewed here.

Six editions, one platform: how the ballot has moved since 2021

Every one of WCBI-TV's six editions carries its own web address rather than reusing one page year after year. The 2021 ballot sat at "Viewers-Choice-Awards-2021," 2022 and 2023 flipped the year to the front of the address, and 2024, 2025 and 2026 moved back to putting the year last. None of that changes what the ballot does; it is simply how Second Street structures a recurring program for one broadcaster over time.

What has stayed constant across all six years is the shape of the process itself: one combined ballot, run by WCBI-TV, hosted on Second Street, with no separate category list or vote-limit page published alongside any of the six editions. A business that nominated itself in 2023 or 2024 would recognize the same basic structure showing up again in 2026.

Where things sit once the 2026 round has closed

The 2026 round finished its run on May 1, 2026, having opened December 31, 2025. WCBI-TV's own history points to a 2027 edition as the next expected round, though the exact date it opens is never fixed months ahead; confirm on the live ballot each cycle once a new round actually appears.

Not to be confused with Mississippi's other viewer and readers' polls

Mississippi runs more than one television station with a near-identical "Viewers' Choice" ballot, and WCBI's is not the only one. A Mississippi business chasing recognition should know which station it is actually entering before assuming a result on one program says anything about another.

Each of those six keeps its own tally, its own judges or ballot rules, and its own winner announcement, entirely apart from WCBI's. A business that lands on WCBI Viewers' Choice Awards has earned a WCBI-TV result and nothing beyond it, and a placement on the Jackson, Tupelo, Oxford or coastal ballots listed above says just as little about how WCBI's own voters would rank the same business.

Building support around a round that returns every year

Six straight years without a gap gives a Mississippi business a real pattern to plan around, even without an exact date for the next opening. The safest approach is watching wcbi.secondstreetapp.com directly once the 2026 round's history suggests a new one is due, rather than waiting on a search engine to surface it.

Once a round is live, real customers asked directly, and asked again more than once before the ballot closes, are what move a result here, whatever the eventual cap turns out to be. Second Street watches every market it hosts for irregular activity, and a single flagged round would put a six-year history in front of the wrong kind of attention. Read is buying votes legal before spending real budget chasing a seventh edition, look at buying votes online for how a paid push usually gets structured around a combined ballot like this one, and see award-vote campaign planning for the readers'-choice angle specifically.