And were he a customer, he would have been lumbered with a monopoly service with a dismal track record – and which year after year has lobbied to get captive households to stump up for major improvements, while shovelling hundreds of millions into the pockets of a small group of largely foreign investors.
Now that researchers know how to get captive chimpanzees to respond like wild chimpanzees, they can do more experiments to study chimp altruism and understand more about how it evolved.
They get captive customers.
Up until the time Lulu gave birth, it had been very difficult to get captive gorilla mothers to raise their young in zoos because the babies would either be rejected by the mother or they would be taken away by the handlers.
"You've got them captive, whether they are shy or what," Mr. Brodsky said with satisfaction.
"The problem is, though, that they have got a captive audience," said the BBC radio presenter of Money Box Live.
I cannot count the number of times I've been told, "At least you've got a captive audience".
"You've got a captive audience each way: our ability to not get caught up long-term, and them having to go out there and really bear down to get their next contract, whether it's with us or with somebody else".
Jamie's white whale of the night -- one which keeps jumping out of the water as the series progresses -- was of course school cafeterias, mostly because they've got a captive audience and have a monumental impact on how someone's diet develops throughout his or her life.
Clubs like Monty's, the one club in the thousands and thousands of one club towns up and down the country, know that they've got a captive audience — young people are inherently lazy and skint so being able to walk home from a club is always an attractive proposition.
