Queen Elizabeth Launches on YouTube

[December 24, 2007]  LONDON (AP) -- Just call her Queen e-Lizabeth.

The 81-year-old British monarch launched her own video site on YouTube Sunday, featuring old news reels and film snippets of daily royal life. Buckingham Palace said Queen Elizabeth II keeps up with new ways of communicating with people and was hoping to reach a wider, and younger, audience through the popular video-sharing Web site.

The palace began posting archive and recent footage of the queen and other royals on the official Royal Channel on YouTube on Sunday, with plans to add new clips regularly.

The queen will use the site to send out her annual televised Christmas message, a tradition that she began 50 years ago.

"The queen always keeps abreast with new ways of communicating with people," Buckingham Palace said in a statement. "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 royal page --which bears the scarlet lettered heading "The Royal Channel --The Official Channel of the British Monarchy" --features a picture of Buckingham Palace flanked by the queen's Guards in their trademark tall bearskin hats and red tunics.

Palace officials said the queen's Christmas message this year will urge people to care for the vulnerable and those excluded from society. She will also pay tribute to the sacrifices made by the armed forces.

The queen chooses a different theme for each annual address, the one occasion in the year when she writes her own speech without government advice.

In a preview of this year's speech, the monarch is seen standing in Buckingham Palace, watching black and white footage of herself delivering her first televised broadcast.

Dressed in an apricot-colored dress, the queen can be seen walking into the palace's opulent 1844 Room, which is filled with lights and production equipment, and preparing to start her address.

The speech remains confidential until it is aired, both on TV and radio, on Christmas Day.

YouTube, which allows anyone to upload and share video clips, was founded in 2005 and bought by Google last year.

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On the Net:

The Royal Channel: http://www.youtube.com/theroyalchannel

[Associated Press; By THOMAS WAGNER]

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