Test screening
Film or television previews for feedback
A test screening, or test audience, is a preview screening of a film or television series before its general release to gauge audience reaction. Preview audiences are selected from a cross-section of the population and are usually asked to complete a questionnaire or provide feedback in some form. Harold Lloyd is credited with inventing the concept, having used it as early as 1928. Test screenings evolved from these early examples into a systematic practice. According to research from Kevin Goetz's book "Audience-ology: How Moviegoers Shape the Films We Love" (2021), by the 1970s, studios formalized the process as they invested more heavily in marketing and distribution strategies. Today, approximately 90 percent of widely released studio films undergo test screenings, with the average movie being tested three times. Test screenings have been recommended for starting filmmakers "even if a film festival is fast approaching".
“Test screening” enters the record as film or television previews for feedback. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Test, screening and Film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Test screening” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Test, screening and Film provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1928 and 2021.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Test screening” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.