The television production by WGVU Public Media of the 2017 Hope College Christmas Vespers service has received a 2018 NETA Award from the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA).

The production was honored in the performance category during the 2019 NETA Conference and CPB [Corporation for Public Broadcasting] Thought Leader Forum, held in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Jan. 21-24.  NETA presented 31 awards honoring public television’s best work in multiple categories, including news and public affairs, performance, documentary, and a variety of forms of instructional media, community engagement and promotion.

Christmas Vespers has been held at Hope since 1941.  The program of Christmas carols and anthems is presented in early December by the college’s Department of Music and features more than 200 students in historic Dimnent Memorial Chapel.

The service was first broadcast on WGVU in 1994, and is now filmed by WGVU Public Media every two or three years, appearing on WGVU and other public television stations across the state as well as elsewhere in the U.S.  The productions have earned multiple awards through the years.