Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid (not quite ABBA yet) performed "Ring Ring" to playback on this contemporary pop programme which ran from 3 June 1972 - 28 September 1973 for 19 episodes..
This clip has been erased from the archive and so is not available any more, the archive contains only 10 episodes from the series, and the ABBA episode (Episode 14) is not one of those. However, a Dutch TV documentary called Pop op TV 1960-1975, broadcast on 16 December 2009 included the two colour pictures below for the first time. The photos have now also been released in the book Pop op TV 1960-1975.
This was part of a promotional tour of Germany (Disco), Austria (Spotlight) and Belgium in the first few months of 1973
Other guests on the show were:
Shaking Stevens & the Sunsets - "Honey Honey"
Shocking Blue - "Oh Lord"
Paul Simon - "Loves Me like a Rock"
Long Tall Ernie & the Shakers - "Turn your Radio on"
Lynsey de Paul - "All Night"
Smyle - "Tandem"
Buffoons - "Arizona"
Barry Blue - "Dancing on a Saturday Night"
Harvey Andrews & Graham Coopers - "Friends of Mine"
Agnetha, Björn, Benny & Anni-Frid - "Ring Ring"
Neil Christian - "That's Nice"
Cats - "Let's Go Together"
Rudy Bennet - "- Wheel of Life"
Sutherland Brothers & Quiver - "You Got me Anyway"
* * * * *
Singer songwriter Harvey Andrews wrote about meeting ABBA in his online blog on 24 November 2009:
Extract from my diary for July 6 1973
To Amsterdam for the Dutch equivalent of ‘Top of the Pops’, called ‘Popzein’.
We sang two songs.
Also on were a bizarrely dressed group from Scandinavia, who, just as
recording began realised they had no guitar to mime with! We were singing
live, so it was arranged that as soon as the cameras were off us I would
dash across the studio and hand over my guitar to one of the two men backing
the female vocalists.
We had seconds to do this, so when the cameras came to the group, he hadn’t
got the strap over his shoulder, so he had to cling to my Gibson and pretend
to play it with a dangly strap and a very restricted right hand! It was
hilarious.
Later, we saw the group sitting outside a cafe by the side of a canal and
they asked us to join them for a glass of wine. We noticed the two women
were only allowed mineral water. The two men were very interesting, telling
us they had their own studio, wrote their own songs, and expected to be
millionaires within the year. They were so confident!
So I’m putting their name down in the diary tonight and we’ll see if we ever
hear of them again – Abba.
Listen to Harvey Andrews talk about his experience on a BBC Radio 2 show
called "Back on the Road broadcast 8 May 1996
(although it looks like Björn has a guitar strapped round his neck, not
hanging loose as Harvey remembers)
with huge thanks to David Calverley
Frida, Benny and Björn are wearing the same outfits that they did for Television City, while Agnetha is wearing her pink heart outfit .
