How do you celebrate a 3000th birthday in radio? Apparently, with a casino party, a Tom Gleeson roast, Dave Gleeson from the Screaming Jets on stage, and the pièce de résistance, the luxury of sleeping in until 5.50am.
As Triple M Adelaide’s Roo, Ditts & Loz prepares to clock up its 3000th show on Thursday, much of the attention is falling on how Laura O’Callaghan, better known to listeners as Loz, has quietly become one of the defining voices behind one of Australia’s most dominant breakfast radio programs.
For years, the show has been anchored by sporting heavyweights Mark Ricciuto and Chris Dittmar. But O’Callaghan’s arrival in late 2021 marked a subtle shift in both tone and audience, as Triple M continued evolving beyond its traditional blokey DNA.
O’Callaghan, who celebrated five years with Triple M last month and will mark five years on the breakfast show in November, first entered radio through Adelaide community station Fresh 92.7 before joining Triple M in April 2021 to co-host Weekend Breakfast alongside Mark ‘Thomo’ Thomas.
After regularly appearing as a guest on Roo and Ditts’ Breakfast show, she officially joined the line-up later that year.
“I wasn’t certain that it was going to work, to be honest, because I was a bit nervous that people would find me irritating or, I don’t know, whatever it is that people seem to have a problem with female presenters,” O’Callaghan told Mediaweek.
“But it’s been really wonderful to see all of the new female listeners come across.”
That audience shift has become one of the more notable parts of the show’s evolution.
“There have been more female listeners who have jumped on board, which is really exciting,” she said.
O’Callaghan said the show has intentionally avoided leaning into stereotypical “female-targeted” content.
“Sometimes, radio marketed to women can be really kind of stereotypical, obvious, kind of boring, same old, same old,” she said.
“And we’re not really going for that. We’re kind of just talking about life and real human stuff.”
Roo, Ditts & Loz
Changing gears
Despite joining two of Adelaide radio’s most established male personalities, O’Callaghan said the dynamic inside the studio has never felt uncomfortable.
“I’m not fussed by it at all. I’ve grown up in pretty male-dominated environments. I’ve worked in a lot of pubs, grown up in footy clubs and that sort of thing,” she said.
“So I’m very familiar with the male specimen, and I’m very comfortable around them, and I enjoy a lot of the things they enjoy. It doesn’t mean I’m not a staunch feminist, but I feel really safe with these guys, and we have a great time.”
Her ability to adapt to live breakfast radio became clear almost immediately after joining the show. During one of her earliest shifts, the team abandoned its planned rundown after news broke that missing four-year-old Cleo Smith had been found alive in Western Australia.
The moment forced the show to pivot on the fly, something O’Callaghan now describes as part of the rhythm of breakfast radio itself.
“You’ve just got to be really adaptable. It’s a bit like learning to drive manual,” she said.
“When you first start, you go, ‘How could I possibly ever do this? This is so overwhelming.’
“And then after a few months you go, ‘Oh, I just realised that I’ve gotten all the way from here to town without realising that I was shifting gears the whole time.’”
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Rolling with the punches
That take-it-as-it-comes conversational approach has become central to the show’s success.
“We’re very, very relaxed about the show. We don’t plan. I mean, we’ll plan a segment topic, but we don’t plan it out. We don’t follow a script. We have no idea what we’re going to say,” O’Callaghan said.
“Whoever brought up the topic is responsible for leading the break, and we just sort of have a conversation.
“It takes a lot of trust to get to that point because, you know, it’s one thing to just have a conversation with someone. It’s another thing to do it in front of 200,000 people.”
The chemistry appears to be resonating with audiences. Roo, Ditts & Loz has finished number one in Adelaide in 25 out of the past 26 GfK surveys.
In the most recent survey, the show again topped the market with a 13.9% share, extending one of the strongest winning streaks in Australian metro breakfast radio.
Still, O’Callaghan insists the team rarely obsesses over ratings.
“We’re just not the type of people who think about those things,” she said.
“I know that sounds really annoying, but we just do what we do. We know what works. It comes very naturally to us.”
“We’ve got an amazing team of people around us helping us put together this show, and I think if you start stressing about ratings, it has the opposite effect of what you want it to have, which is just to be ourselves, to be natural. If it’s too contrived, it just starts sounding really lame.”
Party time
Thursday’s 3000-show celebration will double as something of a victory lap for the team, with listeners, producers, friends, family and Adelaide personalities all expected at the casino event.
“We’ve got a big party coming up on Thursday,” O’Callaghan said.
“Tom Gleeson is going to roast us, and Dave Gleeson from the Screaming Jets is going to get up and sing a few songs.”
“I’m really looking forward to it. I just feel like I’ve just woken up from a dream, and I’m part of a successful radio show, and I get to go to a big party, and it’s awesome.”
And after five years inside one of Australia’s toughest radio shifts, O’Callaghan said she’s changed too.
“I’ve just stopped giving a s**t about so many things that don’t matter anymore,” she said.
“You walk through fire, and you kind of come out smooth on the other side, and by walk through fire, I mean getting up at 5am every morning for as long as I have.
“But I’m proud of myself. I’m committed to this job, and I love it. It’s a huge part of my identity.
“I’ll stay for another five if they’ll have me.”