That’s right. When I was young I was a frequent audience member of talk shows all the way back to Joan Rivers’ morning show at 10am in NYC. That applause sign is not only on at certain points, there is a guy or gal silently whipping up the crowd. Even as a 16 year old, I thought it was annoying.
Same here, when we used to go to live audience radio shows in San Francisco.
They’d send out some person the do rah rah stuff with the audience before the host came on. From that point on, I realized that radio and TV were contrived businesses. All make belief crap. TG for the mute button, I even use it watching Fox News. And that’s why I love to watch Lou Dobbs, because he doesn’t waste his time with this “fair and balanced” BS and so he doesn’t have any Leftists on his show like Tucker Carlson does.