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

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

From The Wall Street Journal

Fischbach is hardly a newcomer to the industry – he's built a platform over 14 years and has a captive audience in his legions of fans.

From BBC

The streaming wars peaked during the pandemic, with Americans a captive audience for two years.

From The Wall Street Journal

“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

And analysts see the company as well positioned to close the gap because its productivity software is used by hundreds of millions of corporate users, a captive audience to whom it can easily promote new AI products.

From The Wall Street Journal