Queen Elizabeth II is posting her
traditional Christmas message on
YouTube for the first time through
a special royal channel on the
video-sharing website which
launches Sunday.
Queen Elizabeth II is posting her traditional Christmas message on YouTube for the first time through a special royal channel on the video-sharing website which launches Sunday.
The festive broadcast will appear at on December 25, but before then, viewers will be able watch past Christmas messages as well as archive and contemporary footage of Britain's royal family.
The royal channel -- www.youtube.com/theroyalchannel -- features a regal homepage illustrated with a photograph of Buckingham Palace in London flanked by guards in bearskin hats and red tunics.
"The queen always keeps abreast with new ways of communicating with people," Buckingham Palace said in a statement. "The Christmas message was podcast last year."
The palace said, "She has always been aware of reaching more people and adapting the communication to suit. This will make the Christmas message more accessible to younger people and those in other countries."
The footage of the queen's 1957 Christmas TV broadcast will remind viewers that TV once was as groundbreaking a creation as Internet is today.
"I very much hope that this new medium will make my Christmas message more personal and direct. That it is possible for some of you to see me today is just another example of the speed at which things are changing all around us," the queen said of television at the time.
The Royal Channel also includes rarely seen footage of the 1923 wedding of the queen's parents, then known as the Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.
On Tuesday, Queen Elizabeth II's annual Christmas speech can once again be downloaded as a podcast from http://www.royal.gov.uk. It also is being made available on television in high definition for the first time.
