captive audience

noun

: a person or people who are unable to leave a place and are thus forced to listen to what is being said

The passengers on the plane were a captive audience.

Examples of captive audience in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Turns out that people not only wanted to read about and discover cars for sale elsewhere online, but Bring a Trailer emerged as a place with this captive audience that people wanted to sell to other Bring a Trailer community members. — Joel Feder, The Drive, 28 Oct. 2026

Yet the traditional model, built around duty-free savings and access to a captive audience, is under pressure. — Kapila Ireland, Vogue, 27 Oct. 2026

So instead of cruising neighborhoods the way God and nature intended, Rodriguez stalks a captive audience. — Allyson Reedy, Denver Post, 16 Sep. 2026

Last year, the city launched an exclusive advertising project with WOW Media to expand the number of kiosks that provide transportation information, along with ads, to a captive audience sitting in traffic. — Jeff Nguyen, CBS News, 11 Aug. 2026