the first time. Following the end of Channel 4's contract to broadcast the lectures, there were concerns that they might simply be dropped from scheduling as the channel was negotiating with the Royal Institution over potential changes to the format, while the BBC announced that "The BBC will not show the lectures again, because it feels the broadcasting environment has moved on in the last four years." Channel Five subsequently agreed to show the lectures from 2005 to 2008, an announcement which was met with derision from academics. The lectures were broadcast on More4 in 2009. In 2010, the lectures returned to the BBC after a ten-year absence from the broadcaster, and have been shown on BBC Four each year since then. In 1994, Professor Susan Greenfield became the first female scientist to present the Christmas Lectures. The first non-white science lecturer was Kevin Fong in 2015, and in August 2020 it was announced that Professor Christopher Jackson would jointly present the 2020 lecture series, thus becoming the first black scientist to do so. In January 2022, the RI launched an appeal to trace copies of those televised lectures which are missing from the BBC's archives, these being the complete series of five lectures each from 1966, 1967, 1969, 1970 and 1971, plus one episode of David Attenborough's 1973 lectures, "The language of animals". List of Christmas lectures 1825 to 1965 The following is a complete list of the Christmas Lectures from 1825 to 1965: Since 1966 The following is a list of televised Christmas Lectures from 1966 onward : References External links Christmas Lectures online (The Ri Channel) Annual events in the United Kingdom BBC Television shows British lecture series Channel 4 original programming Channel 5 (British TV channel) original programming Christmas in the United Kingdom Education in London Christmas Lectures Recurring events established in 1825 Science education in the United Kingdom December events Science and technology in the United Kingdom 1825 establishments in the United Kingdom