"As for the BBC Awards, I did think that perhaps some of the presenters could have been less willing to show their ignorance of the music and less willing to hide behind humour about the music."

Much as I hate to deviate from the views of the respected Mr Schofield, I have to agree with what Tam said: many awards-show presenters are effectively rent-a-gobs. I'd rather they were up-front about their lack of knowledge than being excessively reverential. My ex-husband was once at a press awards 'do and Steve Coogan managed to take the piss out of three different titles that he'd worked for in the space of about two sentences. This did not mean my ex later thumped him in the bar. I think it's quite common for a certain level of barracking and banter to take place at these shindigs. Of course, there's still a line that can be crossed - I think Steve Harley crossed it last year, but I think this year's presenters stayed on the right side.

Do we need awards? Well, it depends on what you do, I guess. Let's not forget that the first festivals in the UK started out as competitive gatherings - even then, over 100 years ago, people wanted recognition for and acknowledgement of their abilities. Since then, folk seems to have become more about taking part than about competitiveness, at least at grass-roots level, but there is still concern within the folk community that our music doesn't get heard widely enough. BBC beanfeasts and gongs may mean little to the average folk club attender or even to some who attend festivals and gigs, but they do act as a kind of kite-mark to the wider world. If I've booked an artist and they've won an award, I'll certainly make sure it's acknowledged on the festival website, because I genuinely believe that it may help to sell tickets. Some people will be swayed by the mark of quality that a BBC Folk Award represents. Some won't care. And that's fine, too.

With regard to the idea that the same small pool of people get nominated every year, you have to remember that the process itself is actually quite wide. The panel can vote for anything they like in the first round. So with 170 people voting, there are a HUGE number of performers who probably get a handful of votes each. The short-listing is naturally going to pool around the areas of largest concesnsus, which might seem somewhat homogenous given the diversity of the voting panel, but it's a natural outcome of this sort of process. I have to be honest: if the awards were condicted by listener vote, I don't think the outcomes would be more diverse - I think the opposite is true. I'm reminded of public voting on awards such as "Most influential musician of the millenium", which named Robbie Williams in the top 5. If you think the awards are full of "usual suspects" and populist choices now, just open it up to a public vote.