Meet Paul Connolly Renowned Broadcaster, Speaker & Communications Coach

5th August 2025

Est. Reading: 2 minutes

With over 20 years experience as a journalist and broadcaster, Paul Connolly has faced just about every challenge you can imagine in the world of live media, from completely blanking on live television, to fumbling interview questions, to freezing in front of thousands.

Those moments, though daunting, became the foundation for his expertise. Through years of trial by fire, Paul developed practical systems, go-to techniques, and recovery strategies for when the worst-case scenario actually happens, skills that have since helped hundreds of professionals become more confident and resilient communicators.

Realising that these tools werent just for journalists, Paul founded The Broadcast Institute, where he and his team have trained over 500 clients, including politicians, CEOs, students, and media hopefuls, to speak with clarity, impact, and, most importantly, the ability to recover when things go wrong.

Pauls philosophy is simple: its not about speaking perfectly its about being ready for anything.

Here Paul tells us his story:

"

I went into broadcast journalism with zero training.

So, naturally, there have been horrendous moments over my 20+ years as a journalist that Ive:

- Completely blanked on live television
- Fumbled a question in an interview
- Froze in front of a crowd of 1000s
- And on and on and on

My training has essentially been trial by fire.

And through those experiences, I've had to work out little systems, go-tos, and techniques to recover when the worst case scenario *actually * happens to you.

But it was only a few years ago that I realised those practical systems apply, really, to anyone.

? If youre giving a presentation and simply dreading it the night before.
? If youre panicking in the car on the way in to a meeting youre speaking in.
? If youre the leader who freezes the second their name is called.

The tools Ive learnt will help you address those fears and push forward with confidence.

And its why I founded The Broadcast Institute.

Partly because I wanted to find a way to pass on all these tools and techniques I have stored and partly because, well, thered likely be a day the masses would tire of seeing my face on their TV

Today, weve coached over 500 professionals - from politicians and CEOs to students and media hopefuls - to become stronger, more confident communicators.

And when people ask us what makes us different I always say its the fact that we dont teach you how to speak perfectly.

We teach you how to be prepared for when everything goes wrong.

So, if you'd like to learn from somebody who's already made all the mistakes, I've actually got an online public speaking masterclass coming up August 22nd.