"...Well, this is undeniable , but I am concerned about the fairness of giving all the money to one person when all would-be folk professionals are going to suffer in the current economic climate"

Well one could say that it's "fair" because it is meritocratic - in the way that all awards, prizes and contests are meritocratic on their own terms. Whether or not you happen to agree with those terms, or the names those terms result in.

Ian implied on the fRoots board that this wasn't the start of any kind of annual folk award: he implied that this is an award that changes its genre each year. (A couple of years ago it was "world music".) It happens to be "folk year" for it this year. Maybe next year it'll be electronica or hip-hop! Who knows.

Sounds, all told, like a fairly arbitrary and crazy award to me. Especially given that it hasn't been publicised: you'd have thought that these kind of awards at least ought to be generating awareness and publicity for the discipline they are in.