The Dove Awards honor contemporary Christian and gospel music. They have categories that cover a wide variety of Christian musical niches, including rock and roll, rap, country and traditional gospel. The Dove Award voters happen to be elderly and musically conservative, which favors the most traditional and established acts, and hurts those that are relatively more cutting edge or without significant radio exposure. The voting results have been such that the Doves are not taken especially seriously by many musicians or fans. A friend of mine happens to be friends the most honored female gospel singer, Sandi Patty. He asked her recently how many Doves she had, and she confessed that she had lost track. By the way, she's won 39 of them since 1982. As you can guess, each Dove awards show tends to be very similar to the previous one which makes it less exciting for fans.
