The phrase "audience discovered" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in contexts where you want to convey that an audience has found or realized something, often in relation to a performance, event, or content.
Example: "The audience discovered a new appreciation for the art form during the performance."
Alternatives: "audience realized" or "audience found out".
The actors were given walk-ons and small roles, then supporting roles, until the audience "discovered" them.
What would happen if, instead of stepping into the show, the audience discovered that the show had come into the real world and was infecting it?
(The series was a disaster: Wodehousean purists were appalled by the changes, and the TV audience discovered that English humour does not translate too well into Hindi).
It came down to when the audience discovered it, they watched it, and then all of a sudden everybody liked it".
Lastly, the audience discovered, in a lecture by Tarik Amar of Columbia University's Harriman Institute, about Ukraine's attempts at redress and reshaping of WWII, its causes and effects, again all a part of a nationalistic legislative processes.
The Graceland effect had spread to other musicians on the tour even before it began, with Masekela and Ladysmith signing new recording contracts as a new audience discovered South African music.
If the audience discovers the joke, fine.
Let the audience discover the consequences of a comedic notion themselves.
He's the long-suffering friend, the sane and responsible guy through whose eyes the audience discovers the creepy antisocial pathology of the more famous partner.
"The main thing was to tell the story really simply and let it play out in long beats and have the audience discover the moment".
This procedural gimmick -- the police remaining clueless to the end while the audience discovers what happened -- was popular a century ago and is still fun.
