Some pros (stand-up comedians) actually measured how many laughs from the audience, per minute, from various performers.Kind of like trying to say somebody is "1d at being funny" - how do you measure that?
They did it to see how they compare with their colleagues/competitors.
( The top people could average something like 7 laughs per minute -- I forget the exact number -- for an hour or more -- that's very difficult to achieve, and a ton of work. )
Comedy stores would know who to book.
Naturally, you get some sort of distribution curve.
Re: Comedian,
Darrell Hammond's book
For movies, there's the gross from the box office, and online sales.
People can be quite ingenious to come up all kinds of measurements,
in their respective fields.
Most of the top people (comedians, at least) work very hard to get there.