The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British radio station BBC Radio 2.
The nominees are chosen by a panel of between 100 to 150 music industry representatives, including broadcasters, journalists, festival organisers, record company directors, agents and promoters. The representatives can vary from year to year and are selected by the production team behind the awards, Smooth Operations Ltd. Smooth Operations is run by the long serving BBC producer, John Leonard.
The award ceremony, which takes place early in February, has been presented since its inception by Mike Harding, and broadcast on BBC Radio 2. In 2004 the awards were shown on television for the first time, on BBC Four. In 2011 the entire event was broadcast live on television via the BBC's red button.
Famous quotes containing the words bbc radio, bbc, radio and/or folk:
“To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.”
—Anonymous. quoted in “Quote Unquote,” Feb. 22, 1982, BBC Radio 4.
“The word “conservative” is used by the BBC as a portmanteau word of abuse for anyone whose views differ from the insufferable, smug, sanctimonious, naive, guilt-ridden, wet, pink orthodoxy of that sunset home of the third-rate minds of that third-rate decade, the nineteen-sixties.”
—Norman Tebbit (b. 1931)
“Local television shows do not, in general, supply make-up artists. The exception to this is Los Angeles, an unusually generous city in this regard, since they also provide this service for radio appearances.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“In the past, the English tried to impose a system wherever they went. They destroyed the nation’s culture and one of the by- products of their systemisation was that they destroyed their own folk culture.”
—Martin Carthy (b. 1941)