NAPA, Ca — Until lately, many premium publishers had frowned on the rise of automated online ad buying that they feared drove down the cost of their ad space. Now the likes of News Corp and New York Times are themselves launching programmatic sales operations.

Online video tech firm SpotXchange‘s CEO Mike Shehan tells Beet.TV such moves are being provoked by newly empowered advertisers on the buy side.

“Through RTB and programmatic, buyers started to see the value of having a little more control on their side … to control what ad is served to whom at what frequency,” he says in this video interview at the TubeMogul University customer retreat.

“Agency trading desks are saying ‘I’ll buy a lot from you at a high CPM – but I want to have a little more decision-making in terms of when I serve that’. That is forcing the changes on the supply side.”

Summing up the trend neatly, Shehan adds: “It’s not that they’re wanting to do programmatic – they’re trying to meet the needs of the buy side.”

Find more of Beet.TV’s coverage of the TubeMogul event here.