We knew you'd ask that first!
If you're in a small market -- and most stations are -- you can license the Time Capsule quarterly ($295) or annually ($995).
All the details are on our "no-hassle" license form.

Fair question.   Many features are offered for free.
Short answer?  Use Time Capsule to generate more than your outlay for it.
Reject the Barterer who grabs the coveted avail... and demands you send an affadavit!

All he leaves for you is an adjacency.  Maybe a re-run to sell.  Big whoop.
(Don't you deserve the opportunity to cash in on a feature's saleable moment?)

That's why everything we do is focused on bringing aboard sponsors you might not otherwise get.
So first, let's pre-sell the Time Capsule there... and justify your investing in a Time Capsule license.
And that license is priced so low (under $20/week = 1 large pizza), you should enjoy at least a 10:1 return.   Plus five new local accounts.

The Pop-format series has 480 programs, one for each month of its 40-year span (1960-1999).
The Country-format programs range from 1960 to 2007, so there are 520 of them.

They'll come on CDs as MP3 files (sampled at 256kbps), so you can load them directly to your server.
And they’ll sort in the order you'll air them, because each filename begins with its Sequence Number:

You can certainly fine-tune for your demographic by avoiding any era you choose.
Some Oldies stations, for instance, steer clear of the 1990s Time Capsule Quizzes.
But even if your playlist is Beatle-free, consider that the sounds of some 1960s moments can captivate listeners of all ages.
(Wouldn't Millennials enjoy hearing some NASA gold?)
So before dumping the whole decade, you might want to try a few... and test the reaction.

No need to.   You’ll have at least 480 Time Capsule Quizzes.
You could burn through two-a-day, every weekday – and not repeat one for 11 months!

It’ll be at least 48 weeks until you do!
Consider 3 valuable tidbits we’ve learned from our longtime affiliates about listener behavior:
• Listeners readily guess the months when something truly historic happened
• After a “learning curve” of a month or so, correct guesses increase -– as even folks uninterested in golf or tennis realize that the British Open and Wimbledon are code words for “July”
• There is no statistical increase in the winning rate after the Time Capsule Quizzes reach the end of their long program cycle and begin repeating.   In fact, listeners don't even perceive them as re-runs!
(Well, except for this guy...)

Many of our stations have been with us for more than 10 years.
KDIX/Dickinson, ND and WFIW/Fairfield, IL have aired the Time Capsule for over 15 years now.
WBCH/Hastings, MI goes back 20 years with us.   At WVLI/Bourbonnais-Kankakee, IL it's been 22 years.
KEEZ/Mankato, MN went for 23 years...   and had Subway as a sponsor the entire time!

Median use tends to be about 3 years, although ownership changes & format shifts are often more of a factor than Contest Fatigue.
Your mileage may vary.

Some of our most enthusiastic affiliates have News/Talk/Sports formats.
Think about it.   These listeners crave information.   They’re certainly 35+.
And they’re typically eager to “show off” what they know.

Now along comes the Time Capsule with a challenge:
“Can you identify this mystery month-and-year?”
And what do they hear in the next 30 seconds?   News and sports!
They’re in.

True, you might not be playing the hits today.
But your listeners’ lives have certainly been touched by music.
Our brief song montage is simply some more compressed information.
It splashes listeners with the music soundtrack of the mystery month.

You bet!   They’re right on the CD.
We realized that two dozen promos will cycle more quickly than our 480 quizzes.
That’s why we crafted them differently.
Instead of “events first, then music”, the promos let everything loose at once.

So the listener gets an intense sonic fly-by news cuts (overlapped, in stereo).
All of it mixed over a sweep of that era’s music.
There’s so much going on that most people can’t take it all in on the first hearing.
Which is precisely the point.

You’ll also receive a couple of Advance Promos.
On these, host Bill Stephens explains what the Time Capsule Quiz is -- and how listeners will be challenged to figure out the month-and-year.
All you need to do is tag them with your airtimes and sponsors.
If you’ll be giving away prizes, you could mention that, too.

They run about 38 seconds, leaving the rest of the minute for your sponsor’s tag.
Here’s a secret you may already know:   Have the sponsor voice his/her own tag.
• Biggest Benefit:   Friends & customers tell the sponsor, “Hey, I heard you on the radio!”
• Secondary Benefit:   Tags needn’t be freshened until the sponsor finds time to do it.

Once you submit your TC license, we’ll direct you to a download site.
You can grab the first week of programs (and promos) while the CD is winging its way to you.
Want to start today?

Just wait until April 1st!
That's when we traditionally spoof ourselves ...with some April Fool’s Time Capsule Quizzes:

You can go back to 1,000,005 B.C. to hear some Classic Stone Age Rock ("Like A Virgin Sacrifice" by Madonnasaurus was big then)
Or ahead to the Year 2525 for Super Bowl DLIX... and “Let’s Get Fissionable”, the #1 song by Olivia Neutron-Bomb
Or perhaps to the mystery month that no one has ever solved, when -- thanks to some studio mischief -- you’ll hear:
• Richard Nixon win the Daytona 500
• Gerald Ford assure us that Freddy Krueger is finally dead
• Lyndon Johnson lament being stranded on the moon!

About 2/3 of our affiliates take calls.
The rest simply use it to showcase a sponsor between the Quiz and the Answer.
Up to you.

The winning rate is largely dependent on how you structure the contest.
• If you choose a contestant before the quiz begins airing, the winning rate is usually low, maybe 10-15%
• If you select a caller after the clues begin playing, that caller wins about 25% of the time
• If you keep taking calls until someone gets it right, about 80% of the time someone will (thanks to Siri, Alexa, Cortana & the Wikipedia)

Other factors are:
• the help (or anti-help) you provide on the air,
• whether you give credit for either the correct month or year,
• whether you guide them with a multiple-choice of 2 or 3 or 4 possible answers
And of course, the general intelligence of your audience...

Most stations aim to provide something from the sponsor, as it’ll bring walk-in business.
Those prizes tend to be in the $10-15 range, which works well for most contest formats.

Going the Cash Jackpot route?
Get the contestant in advance (like buzzing in early on "Jeopardy!").
The winning rate will be low -- and you can add money to the jackpot whenever the caller misses.

Team Effort:   A few years back, a jewelry store in Kansas gave out little diamonds as the Time Capsule prize.
A group of women from one office took turns winning, until they had enough to string together a necklace, which they then shared!

One way is with the Instant Remote.   It’s as simple as placing a call from the studio.
Let’s say Primo’s Pizza is the Friday sponsor of the Time Capsule.   The quiz is scheduled to air at 12:20pm.
At noon, send an air personality or an Account Exec (with cell phone) to Primo’s.
Just before 12:20, make the call and have your colleague select a random customer.
Put that customer on the phone, and presto, there’s today’s contestant — live from Primo’s!
No purchase necessary, of course.

You needn’t do this every week.   Once a month would make it more special.
Promoting your Instant Remote will help boost the walk-in traffic that day.
And that’s something Primo shouldn’t mind a bit!

Absolutely.   You’ll get automatic 30-mile protection.   And if you need more, let us know.

Yes.   And because you’d use the same (Pop) format on both, there’s no extra license fee.
After all, you’ve already claimed the territory.   Why not sell twice as many avails?

Same ownership, same town, two sets of CDs?
Enjoy a 15% discount on both licenses.

Yes indeed.   And the license fee drops with each market you add.
Just ask for our Group Ownership License.

Excellent question!   Many local operators must indeed answer to corporate overlords these days.   Here’s how they handle this obstacle:

First, Time Capsule works hand-in-hand with your sales team to secure sponsors.
So typically the series must generate revenue from Day One, or the GM wouldn’t sign the license in the first place!

Knowing this, the local GM seeks corporate approval in advance for a monthly commission to an agency (that's us) if -- and only if -- it's able to attract this new order of X-thousand dollars in “found money”.

Rather than walk away from all that dough, corporate generally OKs the commission.
Especially because it’s less than the commissions already being paid to every salesperson in the building.
That “commission” is our modest license fee.

So call it a commission, a consultancy, a retainer or whatever headquarters wants to call it.
It’s a hurdle that smart GMs clear for the good of their companies, and that’s how they do it.