LONDON, Dec. 23, 2007
Queen Elizabeth's Modern Christmas Message
British Monarch's Annual Greeting Will Be Posted On YouTube, Along With Archive Footage
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Britain's Queen Elizabeth has given an annual televised Christmas message every year since 1957. (AP Photo/Shaun Curry/Pool)
Buckingham Palace plans on posting archive footage on the video sharing Web site, including her maiden Christmas Day television speech sent out to Britain and its former colonies in 1957, The Sunday Times reported.
The palace plans to post the first of the archive footage on the queen's royal YouTube "channel" on Sunday, the report said.
"The royal channel is a way of bringing the queen's Christmas message to more people of all ages across the world and keeping up with technological innovation as the queen has always done," the newspaper quoted a royal spokeswoman as saying.
Palace officials were not immediately available for comment.
The 81-year-old monarch chooses a different theme for each annual address, the one occasion in the year when she pens her own speech without government advice. In last year's address, she called for mutual respect between young and old and greater religious tolerance.
The queen delivered her first Christmas message on the radio in 1952, a month after her coronation.
Last year's message was available for the first time as a podcast on the Buckingham Palace Web site.
Keeping with tradition, Tuesday's recorded message will be also be broadcast on television.
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