An unexpected phone call from Prime Minister John Key on Christmas Day ended Sir Paul's "annus horribilis" with an "unexpected, wonderful" gift in the form of a knighthood.
Sir Paul was born on April 29, 1950 to Christina and Henry. He grew up in Haumoana, Hawkes Bay with his brother Ken (born 1952), and went to school in Hastings.
In 1972 he completed a BA at Victoria University and joined the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation as an announcer in Christchurch.
A bright future was almost cut short when Sir Paul was involved in a near-fatal car crash in 1973. He suffered a neck fracture, brain haemorrhage and lost vision in his right eye. He recovered after several weeks in hospital and re-launched his radio career.
In 1989 he again made headlines when the helicopter he was travelling in crashed into the ocean off the North Island's east coast killing a man. Sir Paul survived and swam to shore.
Sir Paul was New Zealand's dominant broadcaster from the late 1980s into the new millennium, hosting a radio show on Newstalk ZB in the mornings and primetime television current affairs in the evenings.
He is also an author, and in 2011 published Daughters of Erebus, a re-assessment of the cause of the 1979 disaster in which an Air New Zealand DC-10 crashed into Mt Erebus in Antarctica, killing all 257 people on board.
Sir Paul has championed several charities, notably the Stellar Trust, leading the fight against methamphetamine, or P.
In 2009 he began hosting TVNZ's political show Q+A. He wrote a column for the Herald on Sunday, before transferring to the New Zealand Herald.
In recent years he had been living with current wife Deborah at a Hawkes Bay farm with gardens and thousands of olive trees.
His investiture as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit was held there on January 16 this year (2013). Family had requested the ceremony be fast-tracked because of his ill health.