I grew up with pop music and of course was heavily influenced by charts, music press etc. At the end of my teenage years I was lucky to learn of electric folk and grew from it to more and more traditional music. I still listen to the "subjective opinion of the judges, like all competitions", but they no longer dictate what I have to like. I rather see them as suggestions to listen to exciting musicians that I never heard of before (Tom McConville) or that I'm not familiar with (Chris Wood). Of course there may be music that doesn't appeal to me; and the competitions won't cause me to drop those musicians that I like but who are not the current fad. But that is just having one's own opinion.