Fancy a Flutter, a joint venture between Rank and News Corp's technology company NDS, has linked up with FremantleMedia, to bring back the game show Blockbusters as a fixed odds keno game.

FremantleMedia is a European television production company. A company release informs that the venture marks the first time that a major production company has linked up with an interactive TV betting service in this way.

The original Blockbusters format was hosted by Bob Holness in the 1980s. Two teams of players competed to make a row of lettered hexagons across the board by answering questions associated with the letter picked. In the new version, players must select between
one and 15 numbers and see how many of them match following a random number draw. The more numbers matched, the more money won. The maximum payout on the game is £500,000 and players can stake as little as 20p.

The game also includes Gold Run which was the climax to the original show. This is treated in the new version as a lucky dip function. Elements like ‘Can I have a P please, Bob’ are also included. Fancy a Flutter claims to have attracted over 17,000 registered users since launching last May. So far it claims to have paid out more than £eight million in customer winnings.

Fancy a Flutter has stated that the new agreement with FreemantleMedia underpins its ongoing strategy to work with leading production companies and broadcasters in order to attract new TV customers. The company has put its faith in the nostalgic value of Blockbusters which it feels will provide an entertaining addition to its menu of fixed odds games which are fun and simple to play.

FremantleMedia produces more than 260 programmes in over 40 territories a year. The company has stated that its international distribution division distributes over 19,000 hours of programmes to 150 countries. FremantleMedia is the content business production arm of the RTL Group which claims to be Europe's largest television and radio broadcast company, with interests in 23 television channels and 22 radio stations in nine European countries.