Is axed SAFM personality Andrew ‘Cosi’ Costello in the brekky radio mix for 2023?

He says he’s got “so much going on” since being dumped from SAFM – but breakfast radio is still on the cards for Andrew ‘Cosi’ Costello.

Andrew ‘Cosi’ Costello may have got the flick from SAFM, but he is as switched on as ever.

It is not uncommon for breakfast radio presenters to deliberately fall off the radar – to take time out – after leaving such a high-profile gig.

But close to a month after he was let go, Cosi’s name is still up in lights.

That is because he has managed to establish himself as a brand in his own right.

And it sounds like he is more than ready to make a radio comeback in 2023.

The former pig farmer’s radio career kickstarted 23 years ago after he won a contest on SAFM’s brekky show, then hosted by James Brayshaw and Amanda Blair; Cosi’s gift of the gab got him a gig with the Austereo network where he was heard on SAFM and Triple M.

Cosi during his Triple M days. Picture: Martin Jacka

In 2010 he was given the boot from SAFM’s brekky crew, which also included Amber Petty, Dave ‘Rabbit’ Rabbetts and Dale ‘Louie’ Lewis.

“I was mortified. I walked out on to Greenhill Rd and just bawled my eyes out,” Cosi recently said about being axed back then, adding this time around he’s not sad “because I’ve got so much else going on”.

That includes the top-rating TV travel show he launched in 2011 South Aussie with Cosi, which now airs on Channel 7, and his two charities Cows for Cambodia and Cows for Botswana. But wait, there’s more … Cosi has also been busy restoring and returning Giant Santa to the Adelaide Central Market’s Federal Hall facade in the lead up to the Christmas Pageant.

There’s also been the recent launch of his book, Top 100 Places to Visit in SA.

Cosi and the Giant Santa at the Adelaide Central Market. Picture: Matt Loxton

As for what else there is in the “so much going on” … sources say it is very likely to include having another Adelaide radio gig in the works, but, nothing has been announced by any of the stations.

The rumour doing the rounds is that Cosi is joining Mix 102.3’s breakfast team to help boost the ratings.

At the start of the year Mix launched The Ali Clarke Breakfast Show. When asked about Cosi, a spokeswoman for the station confirmed that Clarke, Eddie Bannon and Shane Lowe would be back in 2023.

We’ve checked in with Cosi – who has made no secret of the fact that he would love to return to breakfast radio – and he was unable to comment.

Ali Carle and Andrew ''Cosi'' Costello back in the 1990s. Picture: Supplied

But Cosi did say he was busy with a multitude of projects, such as promoting his new book, and loving spending time with his family in the lead up to Christmas.

“In early December I am also taking a group of 80 South Australians to Cambodia to see my charity in action,” he said.

Cosi and his wife Sam were recently spotted with Clarke in Sydney at the red carpet opening night of Come From Away.

It was a media junket, but an industry insider says it also provided Cosi and Clarke with a chance to hang out again – they were both at Austereo in the mid-1990s – and bond before hitting the airwaves together in 2023.