SAN FRANCISCO — So much greater are video ad prices compared with standard display, there is a more pressing need to inject programmatic platforms with price control mechanisms, if video advertisers are to adopt the mechanisms, says one programmatic expert.

“There’s such a limited quantity of video … there hasn’t been the need to have this open auction going on,” says Matt Prohaska, who was, until recently, The New York Times’ programmatic ad director but is now operating under his Prohaska Consulting banner.

“CPMs in video are stronger by a factor of three to 10 X – the need to have these controls are even more pressing.”

Prohaska says programmatic technology vendors, fortunately, are beginning to switch on these controls for video buyers. “The two major needs right now to be able to drive more transactional (video) volume in a programmatic direct way would be price transparency and audience discovery,” he adds.

We interviewed Prohaska at the Beet.TV leadership summit on programmatic TV advertising presented with Adap.tv. You can find more clips from the event here.