At the 1964 United Kingdom general election he again contested The Western Isles for the Liberal Party, but this time, the Conservatives decided to run their own candidate.

After occasional print journalism pieces MacLeod joined Grampian Television in Aberdeen as a reporter, before moving to the BBC and in 1970 joining the presenting team of its early evening magazine programme Nationwide, where features he fronted included a dieting item, Slim '72.

[3] MacLeod died from a heart attack in 1984, aged 52, after a short struggle with bowel cancer.

His second son Iain is executive director of the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in New Hampshire, United States and is a noted expert on birds.

His third son Kevin was a star of the popular Scottish theatre group The Singing Kettle.