In the late 1960s and early 1970s the contest was called Melodifestival (Melody Festival) but these days it is more known as Melodifestivalen (The Melody Festival).

ABBA (as Benny, Björn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid) performed Ring Ring (Bara du slog en signal) in this competition to find the Swedish entry for the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest. They came third.

Their performance was filmed in the afternoon and broadcast in the evening.

They were announced as "Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog".

The host for the evening was Alicia Lundberg. 

Frida revealed in an interview in 2008 for Vivement Dimanche that she had sewn the outfits for herself and Agnetha for this peformance. In fact Frida wore her yellow trouser suit again for Spotlight in Austria the following month.

A black and white photo from that night was used on the back cover of their Ring Ring album.

The transmission was taped but later erased by STV. One dedicated ABBA fan able to research the STV archives confirms, "I have even tried ALL the Scandinavian TV-companies... I have watched every programme from that particular day in the archives, just to make sure there isn't just a 5 sec clip somewhere!". It does not exist in Norwegian TV archives either. Perhaps it is still in the archives of Denmark or Finland?

A conflicting explanation from ABBA fan "TM" was that it was destroyed in a fire at the studios but I've not heard that backed up anywhere else.

Another theory is that there was public outrage when they didn't win which is why public voting was introduced in 1974. Therefore wouldn't it have been covered in a news broadcast where maybe a clip of ABBA was shown while the news presenter said how the public thought this was the best song? A good theory perhaps?

So unfortunately, no known VISUAL copy of this performance exists. But there is an audio clip of it - listen in the VIDEO section here.

UPDATE (INTERESTING INFORMATION): On Saturday 10 March 1973, at 20:10 a 50-minute programme was broadcast on TV 1 in Sweden. Entitled Nordiska EM-schlagers (Nordic EC schlagers; EC = European Championship), it featured the three most popular songs in the selection finals in three of the Nordic countries: Finland, Norway and Sweden (Denmark was not in the ESC that year). Naturally, ABBA’s performance of Ring Ring was included.  Could this programme still be in the SVT archives?  It cannot be found in the NRK (Norwegian) TV archives.  Perhaps the NRK just let the Norwegian audience use the SVT broadcast?  But might it also be in the Finnish (YLE) TV archives who would have broadcast similar programmes as part of the Nordvision venture? 
Click here for TV cutting from Aftonbladet from Saturday 10 March 1973
Click here for TV cutting from Norwegian paper Arbeiderbladet from 15 February 1973
Click here for TV cutting from Norwegian paper Arbeiderbladet from 10 March 1973

 

Interesting points to note:-

The winning song that went on to represent Sweden was Sommar'n Som Aldrig Säger Nej (The Summer That Never Says No) by Malta (renamed Nova & The Dolls for the Eurovision Song Contest) and ended up coming 5th. One half of the duo Malta was Claes af Geijerstam who was ABBA's sound engineer on the 1979 Tour and Frida's co-host for the 4 TV shows in 1981 Lite Grand i Örat.

Other familiar names taking part in the 1973 Melodifestivalen were:-

1. Karin & Anders Glenmark (later Gemini) who came fourth with Glenmarks (which also included their Uncle Bruno Glenmark and his wife Ann-Louise Hanson)
2. Ted Gärdestad
3. Lill-Babs
4. Mona Wessman who appeared in the film Åsa-Nisse och den stora Kalabaliken which also featured two songs by The Hep Stars
5. Lasse Berghagen who came 7th with Ding Dong (and who was competing against his ex-wife Lill-Babs) and
6. Peter Himmelstrand (later co-author of the Harry Edgington book ABBA The Lovers Who Conquered the World) who wrote the song which came in 9th place.
   
    

A full list of those appearing is available in the table below. All of the contestants were pictured together here.

Click here to see the final finishing positions, songwriters and scores.

Before the song: "Inga-Lill Nilsson sang song number 3, A Frozen Rose there, And now we've come to song number 4 [called] Ring Ring. Lyrics and Music are written by three men; Stikkan Anderson, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and conducting the orchestra is Lars Samuelsson, who has also arranged the melody for song number 4. It is going to be performed by four artists. Please welcome Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog!"

After the song: "And that was song number 4, Ring Ring, sung by Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog!"

Ring, Ring (Bara Du Slog En Signal)
Written by: (B. Andersson / S. Anderson / B. Ulvaeus)

Tyst och död är telefon
står där nästan som ett hån
inte ringer du och säger älskling nu som du gjorde
allting är så tyst mot förr
ingen knackar på min dörr
det som lockat mig frestar inte, nej, som det borde
inget roar mig just nu
ingen annan bara du

Ring ring, bara du slog en signal
ring ring, tystnaden är så total
ring ring, skingra den oron som mal
om jag fick en signal, tog jag ett språng
hjärtat gjorde en volt, ding-dong bing-bong
om du ring-ring-ringde en endaste gång
om du ring-ring-ringde en endaste gång

Att en telefon kan va’
lika tyst varenda dag
om det vore så, det var nåt fel ändå men dessvärre
om den bara sa ett knyst
om den inte blott var tyst
om jag fick nån lön för nån enda bön av vår Herre
inget roar mig just nu
ingen annan bara du

Ring ring, bara du slog en signal
ring ring, tystnaden är så total
ring ring, skingra den oron som mal
om jag fick en signal, tog jag ett språng
hjärtat gjorde en volt, ding-dong bing-bong
om du ring-ring-ringde en endaste gång
om du ring-ring-ringde en endaste gång

© Copyright 1973 for the world by Universal/Union Songs AB, Stockholm, Sweden. 
All rights reserved

Melodifestival (Frida), 1969;
Melodifestival (Ring Ring), 1973; 
Melodifestival (Waterloo), 1974; 
Melodifestival, 1975;

Thanks to Edward Rhodes, Paul Carter, Ian Cole, Neil Barber, Henk Jansen, Pascale Ranson, Chris Williams, Sean Lennon, Charles Yoneda, Carl Magnus Palm, Terry Malloy & Jos Heselmans for information. Extra thanks to Jozsef, Sam Shervz and Johan Jerreling. Thanks to Claes Davidsson and Sam Shervz for translations
YouTube links c/o ABBATalk