A studio audience is an audience present for the taping of all or part of a television program. The primary purpose of the studio audience is to provide applause and/or laughter to the program's soundtrack (as opposed to canned laughter). A studio audience can also provide volunteers, a visual backdrop and discussion participants. On some game shows, contestants are taken from the studio audience, such as with The Price Is Right.
In some cases, a studio audience can be called upon to vote, to help a contestant (such as with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?) or pass judgment on a politician, for example.
In the United States, tickets to be a part of a studio audience are usually given away for free as opposed to being paid admission. As an enticement to attend, one or more members of the audience may be selected to win a prize, which is usually provided by a manufacturer in exchange for an advertisement, usually at the end of the show.
For comedy television shows like All in the Family, Saturday Night Live and Happy Days (For indoor scenes), the use of a live studio audiences essentially turns them into de facto stage productions while shooting individual scenes, with minor problems like audience applauding when favorite performers enter the stage.
Famous quotes containing the words studio and/or audience:
“The studio has become the crucible where human genius at the apogee of its development brings back to question not only that which is, but creates anew a fantastic and conventional nature which our weak minds, impotent to harmonize it with existing things, adopt by preference, because the miserable work is our own.”
—Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
“The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half- piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)