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Programmes to be optional in EFL?
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Programmes to be optional in EFL?
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Kick Off Programme



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PostPosted: Mon Apr 30, 2018 7:54 pm 
Post subject: Programmes to be optional in EFL?
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Just read that in June the EFL will be voting on whether to give clubs the option of producing a programme, rather than it being mandatory as it is now. Any comments?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/04/30/efl-vote-scrapping-mandatory-matchday-programmes/
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se20blue



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PostPosted: Mon Apr 30, 2018 7:59 pm 
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Benno Spire



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PostPosted: Mon Apr 30, 2018 8:02 pm 
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Make them thinner and cheaper and more people will collect or just do teamsheets
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Eddie Reeve



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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 7:46 am 
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It's being discussed on BBC Breakfast this morning
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Eddie Reeve



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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 9:26 am 
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pompeypete
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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 9:58 am 
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Lets get back to the old B5 size with 8 - 12 pages max.

Would I download a copy from the internet...........NO way !!!!

Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock
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sharrowblade
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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 11:21 am 
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A thinner, cheaper, programme, .......is there any evidence that these actually boost programme sales.

I know Carlisle tried it, and Fleetwood have one, and Preston once tried it with that toilet paper stuff.
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pompeypete
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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 11:34 am 
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sharrowblade wrote:
A thinner, cheaper, programme, .......is there any evidence that these actually boost programme sales.

I know Carlisle tried it, and Fleetwood have one, and Preston once tried it with that toilet paper stuff.


No evidence at all re programme sales

but how many clubs outside the top two divisions make a profit from programmes

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Dorking



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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 12:21 pm 
Post subject: Re: Guardian
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TartanTyneArmy



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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 1:17 pm 
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In my opinion a lot of EFL and Premier League teams need to rethink their programmes. Too many are basically just an exact reprint of club news that had been put out on social media and the website in advance of the fixture. I know of many local non-league programmes that attract good audiences mainly as they are full of quality content from local hobbyist feature writers and guest columnists from around the country.

Your looking at £50-£100 per punter over a season if they are too buy each programme every fixture. That’s a huge investment for fans ontop of crazy ticket prices. And what do they get? A different cover every fortnight and some ghost written notes from the manager. No wonder sales decrease.

There will always be those of us who collect and horde. But I can’t see the typical punter picking up a programme most weeks, probably just on special occasions. There needs to be value for the reader - it needs to be something they can take home after the game and dip in and out of over the next week or so.
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Pete’s Picture Palace
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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 2:26 pm 
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Programme Monthly will be running a campaign to stop it....

"Please find attached a press release put out by the Football League yesterday about the vote they will be holding next month. Programme Monthly will be running a campaign of opposition to the proposal.

I will contact you again later this week and will also send you a copy of an article that I have been asked to write by a national newspaper. In the meantime feel free to email me with your thoughts and suggestions!

Regards.

Paul

Paul Matz, Editor"
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Wullie



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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 8:32 pm 
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They were talking about it on Talk Sport today. One guy said he only went to the game to pick up a programme. Laughing I think all callers wanted the programme to remain. Today i had a free local magazine pushed threw my later box. 32 pages on glossy paper. Some news and stories the rest ads for local business. It was professional and well produced. And FREE.
And yet football clubs say they can't afford to produce a programme which they charge £3/£4 for...... bollocks.
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Ronsaunders



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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 8:46 pm 
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Wullie wrote:
They were talking about it on Talk Sport today. One guy said he only went to the game to pick up a programme. Laughing I think all callers wanted the programme to remain. Today i had a free local magazine pushed threw my later box. 32 pages on glossy paper. Some news and stories the rest ads for local business. It was professional and well produced. And FREE.
And yet football clubs say they can't afford to produce a programme which they charge £3/£4 for...... bollocks.

Amen to that. The German FA produce a programme for their games and charge zilch. Yet our robbing bastards charge £6 for something that is a cross between the Beano and a poor quality Shoot!
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derby1884
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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 9:07 pm 
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As each year goes by, we become ever more enslaved by, and dependent upon, "digital technology".
It's not just football programmes but also newspapers and, ultimately, books that will become museum pieces.
We're already at the point where those leaving school now have had no experience of a world where they can't access what they want to know on a screen, be that screen a PC, laptop or smartphone.

Visited a university library lately?
Loads of students at desks reading journals and papers online....and nobody touching any of the books that surround them.

Nobody will lament the end of the football programme more than me but why is anyone surprised by what's proposed?

If the programme wants to survive in paper form it needs to slim down and find a USP (unique selling point) that digital media can't match.
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Dorking



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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 9:23 pm 
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Ronsaunders wrote:
Wullie wrote:
They were talking about it on Talk Sport today. One guy said he only went to the game to pick up a programme. Laughing I think all callers wanted the programme to remain. Today i had a free local magazine pushed threw my later box. 32 pages on glossy paper. Some news and stories the rest ads for local business. It was professional and well produced. And FREE.
And yet football clubs say they can't afford to produce a programme which they charge £3/£4 for...... bollocks.

Amen to that. The German FA produce a programme for their games and charge zilch. Yet our robbing bastards charge £6 for something that is a cross between the Beano and a poor quality Shoot!


England programme at the last home game (v Italy in March) was £5. Remarkably similar to what most Prem clubs charge £3 or £3.50 for. It did used to be £6 granted, but maybe they've finally started to listen to all the feedback surveys they conduct. And there was a free packet of Panini world cup stickers stuck to the front (needless to say my OCD kicked in and I couldnt bear removing the packet)


Last edited by Dorking on Tue May 01, 2018 10:00 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Karb



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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2018 9:57 pm 
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Never before have programmes had so much content - at a time when they have never needed so little. When I started going to games in the late 70s, the programme was pretty much the only way to find out information, particularly about the reserves and youths - especially if you didn’t take (or lived outside of the area of) the local evening paper. Teams were generally fairly close to what was listed on the back page too, as clubs had smaller squads and only one sub

Nowadays, pretty much any information you want can be found online, and team line ups can fluctuate wildly so programmes just print a squad page. When I’m groundhopping, I like to read history pages and player info for both clubs, but it would be a bit boring seeing it every match, but I appreciate that this would be boring to read in your own club’s programme every match.

So a smaller, cheaper, programme, just to provide a souvenir, would surely be better than the huge tomes that are produced nowadays. Although I still get my Sunderland programmes on subscription, I find I rarely have time to read most of them nowadays.
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Dorking



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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2018 6:41 am 
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I posted this on a Palace forum on a similar thread to this one (apologies if the points are repeated!)

-----------------------------

I buy one every game home and away. I like to think I'm collecting something which will be historical one day - the collecting aspect is important to me.

I wouldn't be the slightest bit bothered if it was half the size though. By the end of every season my box of programmes for that season is bigger than a box of 5x reams of A4 paper, ie it weighs a ton!

I'd be a bit lost from a collecting point of view if there wasn't a programme at an away game because that club didn't do them - I'd have to get a copy of the teamsheet as a substitute!

I wonder if clubs who stop might regret it in the future, a bit like clubs who had 'newspaper' programmes for a few years in the 70's (Derby and PNE I'm looking at you!). Programmes are used by historians to recall past events in the histories of their clubs, and without these, methodical greater record taking will need to take place, or digital records will have to be permanently kept, and not just deleted in 20 years time because it's 'old data'

Maybe if smaller clubs don't want to do it, then supporters clubs or Trusts might take it on, and provide them on a subscription basis to the die-hards as a fundraiser?

We already have clubs, ours included who re-use the same season ticket card year after year, and whose match tickets are often print at home jobbies, soon there could be very little to 'collect' at some clubs to show that you were at a game. Maybe that doesn't matter to most people, but what would go in football museums of the future in 100 years time?!
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Five and In



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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2018 7:12 am 
Post subject: Programmes to be optional in EFL?
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I have nothing except the blindingly obvious to comment.

I completely understand the clubs situation on this and realise that some will struggle to break even with the costs, but a programme is still part of the "match day experience" so there needs to be a middle ground here.

The most sensible thing to do would be to revert to a smaller issue with maybe a maximum of 12/16 pages.
Easier to handle, easier to store for collectors.
We don't need 100 pages of drivel and adverts that nobody needs or reads.
I get that advertising is a huge factor here, but if the overall printing cost etc is reduced, then the need for programme advertising reduces also.
Maybe a club could sell the back page space only to cover the costs?

An online download is not the way forward in my opinion, although as others have said already, it is the way the world is heading.
My missus constantly has her head stuck in her I-Pad reading books, while I would not touch the thing and always have a book on the go that I can hold.
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pompeypete
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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2018 9:21 am 
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Here,s Pompey take on it.......

from the local Evening news.

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/football/pompey/pompey-we-won-t-scrap-programmes-1-8482584
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Rocky



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PostPosted: Wed May 02, 2018 9:37 am 
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As mentioned in the Guardian report, declining sales and increasing costs are a burden for some clubs. This in effect goes hand in hand in the decline of those in our hobby. Maybe thinning the programme out and reducing the price won’t have the desired effect in sales as the new generation of fans have no general interest in buying and collecting programmes. Maybe a reduction in the print run may be an option so the clubs aren’t left with a stockpile of unsold programmes? Each game would be near a sell out but this would still appease the collecting fraternity as a programme is still being made available.

It’s also interesting to note that final sentence in the Guardian report, "If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as £1, you can support the Guardian." I don't think it will be too long before clubs start charging to access some of the material on their websites and that would include any on line programmes they may produce in the future.

Dorking wrote:
I'd be a bit lost from a collecting point of view if there wasn't a programme at an away game because that club didn't do them - I'd have to get a copy of the teamsheet as a substitute!

Interesting point. If programmes aren’t available, will those who currently only collect programmes then turn their attentions to collecting tickets and original teamsheets for games instead?
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