In our contemporary age, defined profoundly by convergence and digitalisation, how has television spread across different platforms and varied screens to attract and engage young audiences, children and youth? Typically, this demographic has been seen as hard to reach, especially by older, more established media like public service broadcasters and other news providers. Young people are increasingly moving away from traditional broadcast television, turning instead to other screens and formats. Such a trend is compelling established media institutions to adapt, to recognise new viewing cultures and disseminate content differently across different platforms. Novel formats, such as the Norwegian teen drama series SKAM (2015-2017) and its international adaptations in France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the United States, Spain and the Netherlands, or the Spanish talent show Operación Triunfo (Star Academy) (2001-2011), which was relaunched in 2017 by TVE with a new social media strategy, have succeeded in overcoming the traditional boundaries of the medium, through multi-platform technology and storytelling via social media networks. Defining this trend is a bifurcation of the audience, with legacy media skewing older, while younger populations increasingly connect through other audiovisual devices and to different types of content. Nevertheless, as a connected screen culture, no longer constrained by a singular screen or fixed location in households, with viewers as cord-cutters, the medium continues to play a key role in the everyday lived realities of people -it remains 'a vital resource for solace, daydreaming, social ritual, knowledge and storytelling' (Hermes and Hill, 2020: 655) in our rapidly changing times.Evident from the research in recent years is that the relationship between youth and television has not ended (see Potter, 2015;Sakr and Steemers, 2017, 2019). Still, understanding the medium's relevance for a younger media generation requires researchers of television and audiovisual culture to reflect deeply on the impact of cross-Critical Studies in Television:
