The audience is a powerful lever to measure whether the protection of intangible cultural heritage is more real or more effective. The audience protection of the intangible cultural heritage refers to the various protection measures taken for the audience to promote the protection effect of the intangible cultural heritage. Through the analysis, the paper determines the audience of the intangible cultural heritage, and determines the importance of the audience in the protection of the intangible culture. Through the analysis of the theory of “use and satisfaction” of communication theory, the paper finds that the audience of Chinese intangible cultural heritage has made some achievements: a number of laws and regulations to protect the audience, and many intangible cultural heritage has its own stable audience groups and audience publicity channels began to take shape. At the same time, it is also found that there are many problems in audience protection, such as not having a legal system specifically for audience protection, the difficulty of matching audience needs and protection measures, and insufficient community participation. On this basis, we can further analyze the needs of the audience of the intangible cultural heritage, and find out that the audience has the needs of cultural identity, the needs of culture and knowledge, the needs of entertainment and interpersonal communication, and the needs of aesthetic and emotional catharsis. Then determine the path of audience protection of intangible cultural heritage, including: the establishment of a special legal system for audience protection. Build the audience protection strategy according to the audience needs. Rooted in the community, the community becomes the base to meet the needs of the audience.