The time will come when the BBC gets fed up of this bitching and says, "sod it, if you don't want the awards, we won't run them"
Roll on that day, the best thing the BBC did for folk music was "hold down a chord" television series.
The BBC would be well advised to stop these awards as soon as possible, and start a series of lessons , teaching the ukelele, might be a good starting point, this inexpensive instrument, is rapidly gaining popularity in schools.
The BBC folk awards[imo] are nonsensical claptrap, personally I dont care a fiddlers fart if they are corrupt, or not corrupt, they are an irrelevant competition for pop/folk performers hell bent on commercial success, they are not encouraging the majority of people to be imaginative, they are not encouraging ordinary people to get interested in roots music, or to be artistically creative, they encourage the following attitude...the winner will achieve success in the folk world ... that is not the case, so they encourage performers to have false hopes.