The broadcast harmed Grundy's television career. By 1979 he was presenting a book review programme, "A Better Read", broadcast not at prime time like "Today", but early on Sunday mornings. In 1980, while filming "Changing Trains", an episode in Series 1 of the BBC TV travel documentary "Great Railway Journeys of the World", he "apparently down the neck of a whisky bottle, in Zurich", and, after being "air-freighted home", was replaced by Eric Robson. His presenting slot on "What the Papers Say" in the early 1980s was his last on national British television, although he continued to present on BBC North West on such shows as "Sweet and Sour" and "The Lancashire Lads" into the mid-'80s. He also appeared as an interviewer in ITV's adaptation of "A Kind of Loving" in 1982.