South Aussie with Cosi: How Andrew Costello went from pig farmer to media A-lister, community champion
From pig farmer to SA media icon, Andrew “Cosi” Costello has had an unconventional, but undeniable, rise to the top. We take a look at his extraordinary journey and plans for the future.
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Last year was one of highs and lows for Adelaide media identity Andrew ‘Cosi’ Costello, dumped unceremoniously from breakfast radio one month, lauded for his role in helping to save a beloved community icon the next.
But the affable Cosi, who over the last few years has cultivated his own lucrative brand and legions of South Australian fans and followers, says he’s “never been happier” and recently revealed he turned down an offer to return to the airwaves on a commercial breakfast show to focus on his family and his many other projects.
“Although I was tempted to hit the airwaves next year, we have decided we have enough on our plate here,” he told The Advertiser’s Antimo Iannella.
“Since leaving SAFM I can honestly say I’ve never been happier. “It’s allowed me to focus on other parts of our business, spend more time with the kids and more time with my sheep.”
Many South Australians will be looking to his next step with interest.
In the meantime, let’s take a look at Cosi’s journey from pig farmer to Adelaide media A-lister.
EARLY YEARS
Costello, 43 , was born in Murray Bridge but grew up in Kadina, on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula. Costello admits he failed Year 12 , but went on to study agriculture at the University of Adelaide’s Roseworthy campus.
After uni, he went from farm to farm doing work on contract.
“I had no home for about 18 months after uni,” Costello said in a 2019 Adelaide University interview.
“I just did contract work on farms, camped in caravans and swagged it every other day. I wasn’t homeless, I could’ve afforded a home but I chose not to,” he said.
He spent several years working as a pig farmer but another, radically different career, was beckoning.
COSI’S BIG BREAK
In 2000, when he was just 21, Costello won a race around the world competition run by SAFM breakfast hosts Amanda Blair and James Brayshaw called The Great Race. His prize? A gig working one day a week on the SAFM breakfast show.
Costello said he was “fresh from the pig farm” when the radio opportunity came along and in those early days the transition from farmer to broadcaster was… well, interesting.
“When I first started working at SAFM I was only doing one day a week in the breakfast show,” Costello explained in a 2015 Facebook post.
“And given I lived in the country, the night before I’d drive down and park near the building and walk across Greenhill Rd and roll my swag out in the southern parklands. There next to the creek I’d sleep until waking up for the show the next day.”
RADIO CAREER
After landing his big break, Costello went on to spend over a decade at SAFM and Southern Cross Austereo’s sister station Triple M.
In 2013, he announced he was taking his broadcast career in a different direction.
“After being ON-AIR here in Adelaide for over 13 years, today I handed in my resignation at Triple M, which is weird cause [sic] most people in radio get fired!!,” he joked.
Costello said he was leaving radio to focus on his “passion”, his SA TV travel show “South Aussie with Cosi”, which started airing on Channel 9 Adelaide in 2011.
Costello made a return to radio, and his former network, in 2019, when he was added to Hit107’s (formerly SAFM) breakfast lineup alongside journalist Rebecca ‘Bec’ Morse.
But his run at Hit107 (which changed back to SAFM in 2020) came to an end in late 2022 when he was axed from the morning line-up, which included comedian Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann.
But Costello said there were no hard feelings.
“I’ve just been told SAFM has decided to push on in 2023 without the Bec, Cosi and Lehmo breakfast show,” he wrote in a message on his Facebook page.
“I’ve loved SAFM so much since I first walked in the doors as a pig farmer from Kadina 23 years ago. They gave me my start in the media and it’s been a wonderful run since then. I wish them well.”
TELEVISION CAREER
Costello made the move to television in 2011, when his SA travel and lifestyle show “South Aussie with Cosi” began airing on Channel 9 in Adelaide.
Airing at 5.30pm on Sunday afternoons, the show showcases South Australian travel destinations, SA history and lifestyle.
In 2021, after producing more than 200 episodes, Costello announced he would be moving the show to a new home on Channel 7.
“I’ve absolutely loved my time at Nine – they gave me a crack when I had nothing to show,” he told the Adelaide Sunday Mail.
South Aussie with Cosi’s popularity has grown steadily since 2011 and is now the highest-rating local travel show on Adelaide TV.
Costello told The Sunday Mail the show making the show was “very challenging” because it was totally self-funded.
“A lot of people don’t realise that. The first (season) didn’t make any money; we barely broke even,” he said.
“It’s very challenging for any self-funded show in Australia, and we’ve been able to manage to do it for a decade.
“We’ve got far more efficient. But anything I can do to shore up the commercial side of the show for my team and to grow … of course, I had to look at that.
“South Aussie with Cosi was SA’s smallest TV production when it started a decade ago and it now has grown to become the state’s biggest non-news TV show. We are incredibly proud of that.”
PERSONAL LIFE
Costello is married to Sam and together they have two daughters, Matilda and Charli-Rose. They also have a son, Harry, from Sam’s previous relationship.
As Cosi explained in a Q&A on the Hit107 website, the couple met at a Ladies’ Night at Adelaide’s legendary (now defunct) nightclub Shennanigans.
“I gave her and her friends some $2 cowboy c***sucker vouchers and played the songs they wanted to hear…NEK MINUTE married,” Costello joked.
“I had some of the greatest times of my life at Shags’ Ladies Night,” he told The Advertiser in 2021, when the SAFM breakfast team revived the famous nightclub for one night only.
“Those truly were the glory days.”
Harry’s health scare
In April, 2022, the family had a terrifying close call when Harry went into Burnside Hospital for a routine shoulder reconstruction that went horribly wrong.
As Sam explained to Advertiser journalist Anna Vlach, Harry suffered an adverse reaction to the anesthetic, with doctors frantically doing everything they could to save his life.
Doctors diagnosed Harry with malignant hyperthermia and, miraculously, he was saved because a critical care team from the Royal Adelaide Hospital was on the road nearby and determined Harry needed a drug the hospital hadn’t used in a decade, but thankfully, had on hand. “I am just so forever grateful,” Sam said.
THE BIGGEST LOSER
In 2008, Costello was a contestant on the Channel 10 weight loss competition The Biggest Loser.
Reflecting on his experience in 2014, Costello explained his commitment to the show meant he had to be away from home for over four months.
He revealed he returned home to discover the couple had conceived the night before he left to film the series.
Writing exclusively for news.com.au, Costello spoke about what really went on when the cameras weren’t rolling, revealing that contestants only trained for about two-and-a-half hours a day, the scales they stood on were not real and that the time between weigh-ins was longer than a week, as it appeared when the episodes aired.
“The shortest gap from weigh-in to weigh-in during our series was 16 days. That’s a fact,” Costello wrote.
“The thing is, overweight people get inspired by watching the Biggest Loser. They get off the couch and they hit the gym.
“But after a week in the real world, some people might only lose 1kg so they feel like they’ve failed and they give up.”
Costello estimated about 75 per cent of contestants from his series had returned to their starting weight, while about 25 per cent had had gastric banding or surgery.
“I sit in the middle somewhere.”
“I lost 50kgs but have put 25kgs back on since the show and my lifelong battle with weight continues.”
WINNING HIS BATTLE WITH THE BULGE
In March 2023, Costello revealed he was finally winning his lifelong battle with his weight after undergoing gastric sleeve surgery.
As Anna Vlach reported exclusively, Costello had dropped 35kg, when he was tipping the scales at almost 143kg and was confident he could shed even more.
Costello explained he had been overweight since he was a child and his love of junkfood became an addiction, in the same way some people are addicted to illicit drugs.
“The same way a heroin addict might want a hit of heroin, or an alcoholic wants a beer, or a gambler has to have a punt - it’s kind of like that to me,” he said.
“Food was an addiction and somehting I battled my whole life. I could just never, ever win.”
Costello told The Advertiser the realisation he needed to take the drastic step to underog surgery to help control his weight was “a pretty low point” but “in hindsight it’s the best thbing I ever did”. Read Anna Vlach’s full interview here.
PUBLIC STOUSH
In 2020, Costello became embroiled in a public stoush with Lucy and Kane Cornes and hired a lawyer after the couple accused Costello of stealing footage shot by their creative production agency for his TV travel show South Aussie with Cosi.
The Cornes’ accused Costello of stealing 20 seconds of footage shot by their agency for Discovery Holiday Parks.
Posting on his own social media the same night, Costello denied stealing the footage, saying “I had full approval from Discovery Holiday Park who paid Lucy and Kane Cornes to shoot the footage”.
Costello also addressed the issue on his hit107 breakfast show the following day, telling listeners he felt he was being “online bullied and it really, really hurt”.
Lucy Cornes joined Costello on air and apologized for her “feisty” outburst.
“My mistake was my feisty side took over and I decided to communicate that on social media. I apologise, Cosi, for calling you a thief.”
Costello engaged a lawyer seeking a retraction and Lucy and Kane Cornes later apologized “unreservedly” in a post on their She Digital Instagram account.
““The statement made via Instagram is false and completely without foundation. I should not have made that statement and regret doing so,” she wrote on She Digital’s Instagram account.
“I have withdrawn the statement and apologized to Andrew Costello via his radio program, Bec and Cosi on hit107.
“I undertake to Andrew Costello and South Aussie with Cosi that the statement will not be repeated. The statement should not be repeated by any other person.
“I wish to unreservedly apologise to Mr Costello and South Aussie with Cosi for my statement and for the damage and distress it has caused.”
Despite the apology, Costello told The Advertiser he was still “deeply hurt” but had decided not to proceed with legal action.
“My family and I are not litigious people. As a family we have decided that we want to rise above all of this and as far as we are concerned this all ends now,” he said.
CHARITY WORK
Despite juggling a busy career and young family, Costello has made time over the last decade to help those less fortunate.
COWS FOR CAMBODIA
In 2013, after visiting the country with a mate, Costello founded a charity called ‘Cows for Cambodia’.
As Costello wrote in a piece for The Advertiser, the charity works like a bank but rather than lending money, the organization lends cows.
Families borrow a pregnant cow and must feed and care for it until it gives birth.
In return, the family is allowed to keep the calf.
Owning a cow in Cambodia can help lift families out of poverty because calves can be sold each year for about USD $600, which is equivalent to the average annual income for a family.
“Therefore give a family a cow and you double the family’s annual income,” Costello wrote.
“But they have got to work for it. I don’t believe in giving handouts but would rather give a “leg up”.
The charity now has about 200 cows and Costello says Cows for Cambodia “has grown to become the biggest agriculture charity in Cambodia”.
The charity constructed a purpose-built facility to care for its cows and is also building schools where children can receive a free education.
Costello has also coordinated several “Rice Runs”, asking Australians to donate money to buy bags of rice, which are donated to families in bags with the donor’s names written on them.
In 2018, Costello launched the Cows for Cambodia concept in Botswana.
COSI TO THE RESCUE
Port Wakefield Rd protest sculptures
In 2013, Costello helped save the famous giant cockroach sculpture off Port Wakefield Rd from the scrapheap after finding out it had been removed from display.
The cockroach is one of several sculptures, including a rat, robot, toilet and spaceship, erected on private land at Lower Light in the 1990s to protest a state government plan to a rubbish dump at Dublin.
The dump eventually went ahead but the sculptures stayed and became a popular attraction for passing motorists.
Costello helped restore the cockroach, which was then put on display in Rundle Mall for 10 weeks, before being returned for display off Port Wakefield Road.
S.O.S - SAVE OUR SANTA!
Beloved by South Australians since the 1960s, Adelaide’s famous “Big Santa” looked destined for the scrapheap in late 2021.
After languishing in storage for two years in need of a good makeover, the future - unlike the jolly fat man’s red cheeks - was not looking rosy for the 15m-tall statue, which was displayed annually on the front of John Martins department store in the 1960s, then on the front of David Jones until 2014, when it was gifted to the Adelaide City Council.
The council handed the sculpture to the Central Market, where Santa was put on display until 2019 when it was forced into storage in need of urgent repairs.
With a report putting the cost of repairing Santa at $34,000, and then storing and erecting him annually at about $90,000, the council attempted to gift the sculpture to the History Trust of South Australia, but it rejected the offer.
That’s when Cosi stepped in, buying Big Santa from the council for $2 and organising a fundraiser to raise the money needed for repairs, storage and to put the iconic figure back on display at the Central Market.
Flamboyant millionaire businessman Lance Vater was a generous donor, tipping in $40,000 to help with continued repairs and winning a dinner for him and 10 guests at Costello’s house with Premier Peter Malinauskas.
THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT ‘COSI’
In an interview with The City Messenger in 2016, Cosi revealed he’d never had coffee and in a 2018 Q&A with former employer Hit107 (now SAFM), he made this musical confession.
“I really like Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears….like really like…. I could cry listening to The Climb by Miley Cyrus”. Hey, there’s no judgement here.
COSI’S NEXT MOVE
Costello was featured on the cover of SAWeekend in January, 2023 and, in a lengthy interview, revealed he was working on an offer to take his TV show national.
He was tight-lipped about the details but said the show would be made in SA and see Cosi travelling around Australia showcasing all kinds of people and places.
“I’ll look at that this year and I’m interested in a couple of other different kinds of projects on TV that I’d like to get off the ground,” he said.
“I can’t really say too much. They’re concepts I can take to the network.”
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