The Costa Book Awards have been running for 50 years - but no longer. The sponsors announced yesterday that they've "taken the difficult decision" to knock the awards on the head, which makes them sound like a beloved but ageing, incontinent and terminally ill pet transported to the vet for one last visit.
In what sense were the Costas ailing? It's not clear, not least because Costa don't appear to have provided any justification for the termination. Damian Barr, writing in the Evening Standard, suggests that the organising team may not even have been aware that the end was nigh.
Barr - one of the judges for the final round of awards - notes that the public outcry at the announcement has largely focused on the failure (or lack of effort) to find a new sponsor, but argues that in any civilised country sponsorship wouldn't be necessary because the government would provide proper support to the industry.
While he acknowledges that "publishers had to commit some cash to supporting their book if it won" - something that had a disproportionately heavy impact on small presses like Seren - it's undeniable that the Costas "were a good thing": "Prizes raise awareness which increase sales, which helps writers and publishers and bookshops and every bit of the publishing ecosystem." In Seren's case, the prize helped to promote poetry - very much a niche artform these days - by getting it into coffee shops up and down the country. The value of doing so can't be underestimated.
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