Before The Seekers had a British hit, their future was riding across the ocean in a can of black-and-white film. A newly digitized eight-minute clip shows the Australian quartet’s earliest known surviving television appearance—and the band had sent a 16mm copy of it ahead to a British booking agency. That promo reel helped arrange enough TV work for them to tear up their return tickets.
The footage captures Judy Durham, Keith Potger, Bruce Woodley and Athol Guy on Graham Kennedy’s live variety show In Melbourne Tonight on March 23, 1964. The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) says the clip had not been broadcast for more than 60 years before the archive published it in September 2026. The real payoff is that you can watch the performance itself, not just read that it existed: the NFSA has made the recovered clip available through its official story and footage page.
This is a lost television artifact with a wonderfully direct sequel. A band used a copy of its own performance to persuade people across the world that it belonged on their screens—and the film appears to have helped change the group’s plans.
A film can carried a two-song audition across the ocean
The Seekers were preparing for a 10-week working holiday in England in 1964, part of a longer schedule that included performing on Sitmar cruises. Their plan had a return date. Before sailing, they sent publicity photographs, an album and a black-and-white 16mm film copy of their latest local TV appearance to the Grade Organisation, a British talent agency.
The clip came from In Melbourne Tonight, recorded at GTV9’s Richmond studios. The appearance had first been captured on videotape and copied onto 16mm film. That distinction makes the artifact even more interesting: the reel was not a movie camera happening to record a television studio. It was a portable promotional copy of a broadcast performance, made to travel where the original program tape could not.
The NFSA identifies the two songs as “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” and “Myra.” The group lip-synced to its own music, as was common for television performances of the period. The black-and-white images preserve something a modern biography cannot: the band’s pacing, expressions and blend in a studio moment that had effectively vanished from public view.
The tape helped turn a temporary detour into a career move
When the group arrived in Southampton in May, engagements had already been arranged. According to the NFSA’s account, the Grade Organisation booked them for British television, including the BBC program Tonight and later Sunday Night at the London Palladium. The early appearances helped give the group a foothold while it was still without a major British hit.
The film did not guarantee international success by itself. It gave the agency a way to see and hear what the group could do before its members arrived, and that helped secure opportunities. Those opportunities multiplied: the NFSA says The Seekers went on to make more than 70 British television appearances during the next four years. The band ultimately stayed in England rather than following its original return plan.
The clip is especially vivid because it joins two kinds of evidence. The image and sound show the performance. The NFSA’s research explains the little piece of logistics behind it: someone had to request a copy from GTV9, pay to have it transferred to 16mm and send it by air so it would reach England before the band.
Why this footage survived when so much television did not
Live television was often recorded over. Broadcasters reused expensive videotape, which means performances could disappear even when they had been seen by a large audience. The NFSA says fewer than 100 episodes of In Melbourne Tonight are believed to survive, and none of the three known Seekers appearances had previously been located.
In 2025, Keith Potger contacted the archive while curating material from Judith Durham’s estate. Among the memorabilia was a single 16mm film can with a handwritten label that described it as the group’s last Australian TV appearance before going overseas. The NFSA says how the original film made its way back to the group remains unclear. The exact chain of custody is a mystery; the identity and significance of the footage are not.
The archive digitized the film and also supplied a copy to the Nine Archives. That recovery does not make every missing episode of Australian television suddenly reappear. It does give one surviving performance a second public life, more than six decades after its original broadcast.
The best part is that the artifact is watchable
“Lost footage recovered” can sound abstract until the footage is right there. In the NFSA clip, viewers can see the quartet perform in the studio and hear the host react to Durham’s voice. The group is not yet the internationally famous act remembered through “Georgy Girl” and “The Carnival Is Over.” It is a working band using a brief television appearance as a calling card.
That is why this small reel matters. The Seekers’ rise is usually told through songs and milestones. Here, the story turns on an eight-minute screen test that crossed an ocean, reached the right people and helped a planned visit become something much larger. Watch the NFSA’s “Myra” clip and its “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” clip to experience the surviving performances directly.
Sources: NFSA announcement; NFSA’s research and footage story. The footage is courtesy of Nine Entertainment.
