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For the first time for as long as I can remember I have missed all but the last half-hour of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College Cambridge (Cambridge is where I come from). I listened and listened to find out if and when it was to be broadcast on NPR, and heard nothing. Next time could you please make an announcement - more than one? I was overjoyed when NPR started to broadcast it a few years ago. To miss it in this way is much more upsetting than you realize.

I turned on my radio this morning at 10 A.M. and was expecting to hear the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast LIVE from Kings College in Cambridge, England, as I have every year for decades.

I, too, enjoyed listening to the live broadcast at the same time the British half of my family was also listening.

What was the reason for this change?

What a shame that WNYC inexplicably shifted the broadcast of this service from its usual time. One of the greatest aspects of the broadcast of this service usually is that it is LIVE, and the listener feels an immediacy and closeness to those participating as a result. The BBC used to point out how many millions of people tuned in at precisely this time from all around the world to listen.

Sadly, we won't feel that connection this year. Please restore the live broadcast in future -- and please also don't cut the organ voluntary at the end, but give the listener a few minutes to contemplate and wind down from this superbly paced musical and spiritual event.

I am sad that I shall miss the broadcast this year because I'll be at a family dinner with 24 others. Hearing this service in the morning was the most wonderful way to really feel that Christmas was here, inside my heart. Please change the schedule back to the morning next year. Thank you.

My British father, who has lived in New York for 30 years, looks forward to the live morning broadcast of this service probably more than any other Christmas tradition, and he was terribly sad to find out it wasn't on this morning. He loves knowing that his family in England is listening at the same time as he is, and we all hope very very much that it will return to the live broadcast next year.

I is indeed a great disapointment that you have elected not to breadcast the King's College Service of Lessons and Carols live this year. The delayed broadcast is scheduled much to late in the day to be enjoyed by our family as we will be at church during this time. Please restore the live broadcast if at all possible.

For those like me who have heavy obligations in church on Christmas Eve the annual live broadcast of the King's College Service of Lessons and Carols has been a calm and centering broadcast to which my wife and I eagerly looked forward each year. We are terribly disappointed that this has been rescheduled to a time when we cannot hear it. I very much hope that you will reconsider this in future years and return the broadcast to its customary morning time.
-K Walters

Fortunately I'm close enough to Philadelphia today to hear the Kings College broadcast on a station more respectful of Christmas tradition than WNYC. But what if I were at my Brooklyn apartment?

Please return to the correct schedule next year, and please explain this year's decision. Perhaps you were flooded with member requests for a 10 hour delay?

Listening for the voice of a single boy soprano herald the beginning of Christmas by singing the first verse of "Once in Royal David's City" is for me, the high point of Christmas. We flew to England one year just to participate in this most treasured service of the Anglican church. Each year, as it airs live from Cambridge, I see again the line of people waiting for seats in the chapel that forms early in the day. Not only is 8 PM an inconvenient time, it's also not a live broadcast. It may sound the same, but it's not. I am terribly disappointed. Please do not do this again.

I am more disappointed than you can possibly imagine, that you have shifted the time for Nine Lessons and Carols. Every year this is our family tradition, to listen to this magnificent program . . . live!! It is the hightlight of our Christmas season. This means that we will not be able to hear it at all, since we are church musicians, and have our own services this evening. This must be the case for many people who would be listening to this program . . . that they too are involved in their own Xmas Eve services in the evening. Please, please, please restore Lessons and Carols to their proper time next year . . . Xmas Eve Day at 10 a.m., live from Kings College Chapel. As a big supporter of WNYC and as a contributor, I plead that next year this happens, for this year it is a huge disservice to those of us who love this program. Having it LIVE is what makes it so special, not recorded and presented later.
I and my family are heartbroken.
You did this once before (10 years ago??), and then restored it the following year, after much protest. Please may you restore it next year. This year it is ruined for us.
Miserably, Anne Somary

I am so disappointed! I got up early to do my grocery shopping, zipped through it, rushed back home so I could hear the first note of Once in Royal David's City....and got this could happen any time discussion about growing up and passing for white!

For years, we've baked cookies with beautiful music filling the house. How could you arbitrarily change this tradition?? Is it so hard to broadcast it twice?

Deflatedly,
A loyal listened and regular supporter.

I have listened faithfully every Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember, while making my traditional Christmas breads. I was dismayed to learn of the schedule change of the Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast, for I will be in church singing in the choir during your broadcast, as will many of your fans of superb choral music. Please shift this broadcast back to 10 a.m. for next Christmas. I will miss it terribly today.

Thank you.

I am deeply disappointed by your decision not to broadcast the Lessons and Carols from Kings College on Christmas Eve morning. My family's schedule for the day is normally planned around listening to this traditional event before the day gets frantically busy - by this evening we shall be busy getting ready for tonight's church services and tomorrow's events. In addition, the morning timing was a continuing link to our family and friends listening in Britain. This shift is a real disservice to your listeners, and I hope you will not make this mistake again in future years. For what did we lose this special event - a repeat of an old show? Why?

As a member and contributor I write to object to the unexplained shift of the Lessons and Carols from Kings College from Christmas Eve morning to evening. It has been a long-standing tradition of many years in our family to begin the Christmas celebration with this broadcast. To listen in the morning before the day's schedule becomes more rushed was the perfect start to this day. To place it in the evening, in the middle of family dinners and celebrations and preparations for church services is ill-considered. It has become too common for WNYC to make unexplained shifts in program without any consideration of members and listeners preference. Please reconsider in this case. Thank you.