It seems to me that the main gripes about this year's awards are:

1. A non-traditional song (Seth Lakeman's White Hare) has been nominated for best traditional song.

2. Many good artists have been omitted from the nominations and don't get much (if any) airplay on the Mike Harding Radio 2 show

3. Many of the artists nominated are those that have received plenty of airplay on the same show

4. Some of the artists nominated are not really folk artists at all and are really pop groups or play other non-folk music

Have I missed anything?

My response to these are:

1. Yes, I agree this is indefensible, and the correct response would have been for people to lobby the BBC and ask for the nomination to be withdrawn, and replaced by another suitable nomination (the 5th one on the list, i.e. the first one that missed out because of the inclusion of the erroneously included one)

2 and 3. There's not much you can do about this, as it is difficult to prove any connection between the presence/absence of airplay and the nominations. Those who missed out will just have to try harder to get played and hope they can push their way in next time. Unless anyone can think of something I haven't? This is the same problem that rock/pop artists face, when trying to flog their records and get into the charts. I don't believe the airplay issue is as important as it was in the past, because of the web making it easier for artists to get heard and known (via myspace etc.).

4. This is entirely subjective, and as we already know, there is no agreed definition of what is and isn't folk music. So again we can do nothing about it. My own view is that all the artists nominated are what are normally classed as 'folk', but that's just my view and I know many others don't agree. That doesn't mean I like all the arists nominated, just that I recognise they have some sort of 'folk' credentials. I don't see anything those who object can do, except over a period of time, making the sort of music they like to a high standard and trying raise its profile and gradually 'educate' the public and the BBC 'folk mafia' that there is a lot of good stuff out there that's being overlooked.