Visit the Queen's YouTube site: the Christmas message broadcasts at 1500 GMT on December 25

At 81, the Queen is still a big draw for the internet generation. Yesterday Buckingham Palace launched the official Royal Channel on YouTube, the video-sharing website. It attracted more than two hits per second, soaring past the 100,000 mark at 2.30pm, and by last night it was one of the most viewed channels on the site.

It is 50 years since a fresh-faced Elizabeth II made history by becoming the first monarch to make a televised Christmas address. In glorious monochrome, and glancing furtively at her notes, she remarked: “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.”

Half a century later, technological advances continue to modify the medium of her Christmas message. The rise of digital television means that, as well as the venture into YouTube, this year’s festive address will be screened in high definition for the first time.

The contents of the Queen’s speech are kept confidential until it is aired, apart from in 1992 when it was leaked to the Sun newspaper. The Palace said that this year she will discuss how everyone has a responsibility to care for the vulnerable and those on the fringes of society.

With two grandchildren in the Army, she will also pay tribute to the sacrifices made by the men and women who will spend their Christmas Day in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This year’s address was recorded in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace. In a preview, she is seen in an apricot-coloured dress viewing the black and white footage of herself delivering the 1957 broadcast. That footage was last night the most popular of 18 videos on the palace’s YouTube channel.

A spokesman for YouTube said: “The interest it has generated has been phenomenal. Bearing in mind that it is a Sunday and it only went live at midnight, to have that many viewers is absolutely amazing. I have never seen anything like it – it is completely remarkable.”

Buckingham Palace declared itself delighted. A spokeswoman said: “We have had a note from YouTube saying that they have had an unprecedented number of visits to the channel. We are very pleased because it means that more people will see the Queen’s message, especially from the younger generation.”

The channel also shows extracts from Lord Wakehurst’s film Long to Reign Over Us.

Royal broadcasts

— The televised version of “Her Majesty the Queen’s Christmas message to the peoples of the Commonwealth” began in 1957. She said: “I very much hope that this new medium will make my Christmas message more personal and direct. It is inevitable that I should seem a rather remote figure to many of you – a successor to the kings and queens of history: someone whose face may be familiar in newspapers and films but who never really touches your personal lives. But now, at least for a few minutes, I welcome you to the peace of my own home”

— Twenty-five years earlier George V was the first monarch to deliver a festive radio broadcast – described by The Times as “the most notable event of Christmastide”. The King said: “Through one of the marvels of modern science, I am enabled this Christmas Day to speak to all my peoples throughout the Empire. I take it as a good omen that wireless should have reached its present perfection at a time when the Empire has been linked in closer union”

— The Queen has delivered a televised Christmas message every year except for 1969, when she issued only a written statement after deciding that the summer’s documentary The Royal Family represented ample screen time for one year

— According to the Duke of York, interviewed for the forthcoming documentary Lights! Camera! The Queen!, she sometimes cannot bear to watch herself in the company of relatives gathered at Sandringham for Christmas Day

— Her Christmas speeches have at times brought unease at Downing Street, which is sent the speech in advance. In 1968 – the year that the Queen first wrote the message herself – Harold Wilson was unimpressed with her reference to “serious economic issues facing the country” and the wording was subsequently altered

— The broadcasts have also reflected tribulations in the Queen’s own life. In 1992, her “annus horribilis” was capped when the Christmas message was leaked, and she told the nation: “It has, indeed, been a sombre year”

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