at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2015 The awards are managed by independent production company
Smooth Operations, now part of
7digital.
Kellie While of Smooth Operations has stated that the idea of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards was conceived by the company in 1999, inspired by the
Country Music Awards, and brought to the BBC, and
The Guardian has attributed their creation to John Leonard, who formed Smooth Operations in 1995. and the
Belfast Waterfront in 2018. In 2014, 2016 and 2017, the event was held at the
Royal Albert Hall in London. Reviewing the 2014 Royal Albert Hall event,
Colin Irwin remarked on how much more glamorous it had become since the first event fifteen years earlier. Between 2000 and 2012 the Folk Awards were hosted by
Mike Harding, and broadcast on
BBC Radio 2.
Mark Radcliffe and Scottish Gaelic singer
Julie Fowlis took over presenting the ceremony in 2013. In 2004 the awards were shown on television for the first time, on
BBC Four. The event has been streamed live in audio and video on the
BBC Radio 2 website, the
BBC iPlayer and/or the
BBC Red Button TV service. The
BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award has been included in the award event since 2011, having previously been awarded in a separate ceremony, but its selection process remains independent. In 2016,
Rhiannon Giddens became the first non-British winner of the 'Folk Singer of the Year' award. In 2020, there was no award ceremony due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. ==Selection==