Since the early days of television, both buyers and sellers have been drawn to the concept of premium content. For sellers, it connotes an asset that deserves a premium price, and for buyers it has meant content that captures the attention of consumers, and arguably warrants a higher price.

With the proliferation of content, viewership data and the emergence of more content producers over the past few years, the argument over what is considered premium content—and what deserves a higher price—has evolved. It’s important for the industry to come together around a new paradigm that captures the full experience for all parties, so that everyone can get the most value out of it.

What premium looked like in the past

Historically, premium content needed to be professionally produced, long form, scalable to a large audience, limited in supply to create demand, and interesting enough to garner viewer attention and ultimately become part of the cultural zeitgeist.

The prime examples are plentiful, and even among linear television the options for different viewers’ tastes were diverse: Grey’s Anatomy, Breaking Bad, The Office, Survivor, The Hills.

That criteria made sense in a pre-streaming, pre-social media era, but in today’s marketplace, it misses a lot about the experience—not only for viewers, but for content producers as well as media buyers and sellers.

For one thing, production equipment and the internet have democratized high quality content production, so it no longer matters who produces it.

It’s not about content length anymore

The length of the content has also become less of a defining factor. If you enjoy house renovation content and have been an avid HGTV viewer, you may find Instagram stories by home design influencers just as valuable as broadcast advertisements, if not more so.

These creators produce short spurts of content, but they publish it far more frequently, with the added benefit of clickable links within the viewing environment so that you can discover the exact paint color they chose for their guest room or purchase the same light fixture for your entryway.

Scarcity has been replaced by scalability

Traditionally, limited supply was also a hallmark of premium content—scarcity made it desirable and was reflected in the price for advertisers. But with technology companies entering the content game and traditional studios increasing their original content production to keep up in the limitless distribution options because of the streaming wars—scarcity is not as much of a factor today.

Premium content is in the eye of the viewer, not the producer.

With the new entrants in original content production (Amazon, Netflix and Apple) the supply has increased tremendously: Original scripted TV series in the U.S. more than doubled from 2009 to 2019. Social media platforms have made user-generated content a constant stream that viewers consider premium; highly personalized algorithms found on platforms such as TikTok can keep them engaged for hours.

Despite the evolving marketplace, what remains true of premium content is that it’s scalable and more importantly, garners a viewer’s attention. User-generated content on YouTube, a la MrBeast, is achieving a scale that even the biggest legacy media companies haven’t seen.

New criteria that can help create a more complete picture of premium content is time spent viewing and attention—does it make the viewer stop scrolling or searching? Does it spur digital action, whether that’s “add to cart” or “bookmark for later”?

Premium is about the audience

This brings us to the most important new criteria of premium content today: The ability to append data to it. In a new marketplace that is all about addressability and targeting, ensuring that content is delivered to the most desirable target audience can make any piece of content premium. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a scripted show on a streaming platform or a 30-second video from a TikTok influencer.

At last, premium content is in the eye of the viewer, not the producer. In this new paradigm, there’s optimal value for everyone—content creators and media sellers see the true value of their content, media buyers are better able to locate and target their viewers, and ultimately, viewers get a better experience with engaging content. It will be exciting to see how advertisers will adapt creatively to these new premium formats.