Cruise 1323 Adelaide commenced at 6am on November 15, 2005. Alan Baskin read the first news bulletin and then Peter Burgham kicked things off on breakfast.

The inaugural Cruise 1323 lineup was as follows:

Breakfast/PD: Peter Burgham Formerly PD of 2CH Sydney and previously 14 years at Radio I in Auckland

Mornings: Craig ‘Huggy’ Huggins (currently doing 7am-midday on Cruise)

Afternoon/Drive: Mark Elliston

Nights: Bob Peters

Breakfast News: Alan Baskin

The poor station had experienced a couple of years of neglect up until then. 5AD, now KIIS 102.3, had moved to FM and after a couple of false starts was purchased by former 5DN announcer and Station Manager Jeremy Cordeaux and Sue Fraser. They were broadcasting 5DN on both 102.3FM and 1323 AM, and no 1 in the ratings, until they they were told they couldn’t by the then radio regulators so the spare AM frequency got a mix of talk and easy listening.

The station has chugged along very nicely in the years since, on the smell of an oily rag and playing the most music of all the commercial stations too, but with greater money and attention spent on sister station KIIS. But across this year ARN started to make some significant changes. Cruise became part of the Gold Network, alongside Gold 104.3 Melbourne and Gold 101.7 Sydney and long standing breakfast and mornings presenter John Dean departed. Like Huggy he’d been with the station since its inception. At that time Cruise was 5th overall in the survey standings with an 8.8% audience share for all audiences (see below)

John Dean was replaced by Huggy with Cruise featuring just two announcers on their also rather neglected website, Huggy and Steve ‘Bilko’ Bilokin who does afternoons with a replay of Jonesy and Amanda‘s JAM Nation from 5-6pm. You can also see above, after John’s departure, the gradual decline in listenership.

In the recent ARN Upfronts it was announced that Cruise will become GOLD 1323 from 2026 and that both Christian O’Connell on breakfast and Jonesy and Amanda on Drive will be nationally networked for GOLD next year.

While Lisa Shaw and Russell Clarke will remain on Perth’s 96FM when it becomes GOLD96FM next year, what will become of Huggy and Bilko remains to be seen.

ARN said:

If Christian takes breakfast and Jonesy and Amanda Drive, on Cruise in Adelaide, instead of a Gold DAB+ station, what will be the three hours of local content, or don’t they need to have any of that? It would be considerably less, and different music with two shows that feature quite a bit of talk content. Cruise, which has as 5DN sat aloft the ratings once upon a time, seems likely to be given a holding pattern rather than a clear directive, in a market that other stations targeting that younger, highly engaged audience.

One final note – while Cruise celebrates 20 years, 5DN itself turned 100 in 2024, with official services beginning in February 1925.

On the 80th anniversary of the first experimental broadcasts, in 2004 shortly before the SEN debacle, a time capsule that was buried by Jeremy Cordeaux in 1984 was dug up. It contained items like tapes, photographs and promotional plans.

Jeremy was there to dig it up again, as was then 5DN Program Director, Ben Latimer. Ben is now Head of Audio Content at the ABC. 

“It’s always exciting – and somewhat mysterious – to open a time capsule. It was a bit of a thrill to be there – it’ll be like a voice from the past, telling us about the way things used to be in our workplace 20 years ago.

“When the capsule is re-opened in years to come, you never know what the world – and technology – will be like by then. It’s somewhat of a novelty to think that we’re providing future 5DN employees with a snapshot of where radio technology is at right now, and how the station is run in 2004.

And who knows – Jeremy Cordeaux might even still be around for the next unearthing too!”

Jeremy indeed is, he turned 80 in September. But for 5DN’s 100th and Cruise’s 20th, that capsule reflecting a time when the station flourished, remained underground. It would nice to see what was added in 2004 and even better perhaps some of the stories, pictures and promotional effects of Cruise 1323 before it changes name and branding again, for all the people who have been a part of it over the last two decades.

Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo.