captive audience

Idioms  

1. Listeners or onlookers who have no choice but to attend. For example, It's a required course and, knowing he has a captive audience, the professor rambles on endlessly. This expression, first recorded in 1902, uses captive in the sense of “unable to escape.”

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Example Sentences

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captive audience

"It's worth it for the banks, because they then have a captive audience, who are more likely to take other products from them."

From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026

In contrast to Cricket, who skates along with no end plan, Olympia is a committed careerist, an artist who insists on a captive audience to justify her work.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026

It wasn’t long before Hill realized she had a captive audience.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 1, 2026

“If we go for a walk, he’s a captive audience, but it’s been below zero here. So sometimes, I’ll interrupt ‘Jeopardy,’” she said.

From MarketWatch ● Feb. 10, 2026

“Don’t feel bad, friends.We couldn’t have said no to what they asked us to do,” Bruce said, slowly raising his eyes to gaze at his captive audience again.

From "The Kill Order (Maze Runner, Book Four; Origin)" by James Dashner