They can do both, their argument goes, because they not only have more data on what the audience wants — and, with their algorithm’s help, are better able to personalize the experience — but also their system of analyzing taste is more refined than that of others in the industry.

Unlike traditional media outlets, Netflix does not fixate on categories of age, gender or race. “We don’t pull demographic information because you would be in danger of imparting biases of what a 75-year-old Japanese grandmother would want to watch versus a 14-year-old kid from Ohio,” Ms. Nishimura said. “But there are moments in time when they are in the exact same taste cluster. We see it all the time.”

The Netflix system has more than 2,000 “taste clusters” that measure content by tone, timbre and feeling to predict what you will want to see when you log onto the site. Netflix places more emphasis on whether a show is uplifting, somber or redemptive than on genre or who the director is. But what do these new metrics say about comedy that the rest of us cannot see?

Netflix is famously tight-lipped about data. It won’t release audience information to the news media or comics, who would love to know who watches their specials to plan tours.

But the two executives will discuss some details. Mr. Praw said one of the many misconceptions he brought to Netflix was that there would be no overlap between fans of, say, Gabriel Iglesias’s broad comedy and Maria Bamford’s more cerebral standup. “What we discovered is that for some people that’s the case,” he said, “but for others, that assumption is wrong.”