This experiment examines the impact of different audience situations and relates it to the learning of interpersonal skills. Forty-eight ten-year-old boys saw a half-hour television film in one of the following situations: alone, together with their mothers, or together with two friends. Then it was measured how well they recognized the motives, thoughts, and feelings of the persons acting in the film. The results show that the children usually watching television together with other children or with adults perform better. The experimental audience situation as such has no effect, but it interacts with the habitual one: empathy is highest where the experimental situation corresponds with the habitual situation. This can be interpreted to show that empathic competency is situationally developed as well as activated. There are also differences according to social class. It is discussed to what extent empathy towards the persons acting in a film can be transferred to natural interaction, i.e., to what extent, in the area of interpersonal skills, learning from television is possible.