Jase Cullen

Jase Cullen octochamp statistics
Final position	Champion
Seeding	1
Points total	926
Conundrums solved	5

Jase Cullen in Series 57...

...and 18 years later in Series 92!

Jase Cullen holding the Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy after winning Series 92.

Jason 'Jase' Cullen was a contestant in Series 57 and 58, and an octochamp in and the champion of Series 92. At the time of his first round of television appearances, he was a secondary school student from Bolton. But by the time of his return, he was a business development manager for the recruitment agency Reed living in Salford. He joined Apterous in 2023.

Appearances

Series 57 and 58

Cullen made his debut at the tail-end of Series 57 where he won 4 games including a victory against eventual Series 84 octochamp and semi-finalist, Stu Harkness. That run was then stopped by the end-of-series finals where Jason temporarily stepped aside. He returned in the new year as the incumbent champion for the first show of Series 58 but lost by a sizable margin of 46 points to an impressive performance from Gayle Smith, while just missing out on the end-of-series finals by virtue of being the eventual ninth seed.

Series 92

Heat games

Nearly 18 years later, Cullen returned to the Countdown scene in Series 92 where five-time winner and Dublinite John Pakenham was waiting as his first heat opponent. The latter kept pace with Cullen the entire game, right up until the extremely crucial conundrum of HIDEFACTS. Fortunately for Jase, he quickly unravelled the former into CATFISHED to secure his second teapot and put an end to John's run. He followed that up with seven further five-star performances, all of which were centuries to add to his first heat score of 109. The more interesting elements of his run came in his fifth game, where he racked up the highest score of the series due to the nine-letter-word spots of NEUROMAST and REDUCTASE. He also had two further nines from his heats, those being ELASTOMER and EPILATORS.

After powering past his final preliminary opponent Guy Barry, while maxing 13-rounds for the fourth time, Cullen secured octochampdom and membership of the 900 club with a final tally of 926. This was just enough to knock Brett Davids off the top spot and give Jase the No. 1 seed, at least for the time being. Colin Murray and Rachel Riley then christened him "Jase & Status", as a final send-off to mark his accomplishments to date, with his final tally also being the second-highest of all time where there was at least one crucial conundrum (only Ahmed Mohamed has a higher points total with that feature by a single point).

Finals

He did ultimately return as the No. 1 seed against fellow Series 57 contestant and returnee Shemina Kirby, and powered through to victory while scoring in every single round; he also racked up another century and his second highest ever score with 121 points to progress to the semi-finals.

No. 5 seed John Payne was waiting for him fresh off a seeding upset, and proved to be no walkover. That being said, Jase eventually built up a sizable lead thanks to spots like OPAQUER, EGOSURF and UNVEILS to officially put himself in the grand final before a very easy final four-large numbers round. He also scored in every single round for the second game running thanks to a very good conundrum solve by quickly turning ROYALSPEC into COSPLAYER to get a final score of 116, which was among the upper-range of his performances to date.

A hotly anticipated final awaited him against No. 2 seed Dr. Brett Davids and like so many of Cullen's opponents, Brett proved to be very difficult. But similar to his performance against John Payne, Cullen quietly built up a decisive lead in no small part due to Davids only scoring on one numbers round, while Jase got something each time. He also spotted the darrenic MAJESTIC, and all of this meant that Jase had won the game, and the whole series before the conundrum. Cullen also put a final bit of polish on his performance by quickly spotting UFOLOGIST from GUSTOFOIL, to continue his finals streak of scoring in every round, having maxed 13 of them in the final alone. With a final score of 118 and an impressive Xicount total of 1,281, after the formal presentation was done, he then lifted the Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy as the final Countdown act of 2025.

Preceded by Rhys Jones

Series winner Series 92

Appearances on other Quiz shows

He has also been a jackpot winner on Pointless. And in 2008, he appeared at the unofficial CoNot 2008 tournament, having made appearances at multiple Co-events since then.

ZoomDown

Before making his return to the show in Series 92, Cullen made his debut in 2025 as a contestant in ZoomDown Series 5, racking up four victories and becoming a tetrachamp with 463 points (never scoring below 111). Returning as the third seed, he worked his way past Matt Gould in his quarter-final before triumphing in a very close contest against MSR in the semi-final during the same episode; MSR did solve the conundrum to have the last word but Jase marched onto the grand final. The final was a close affair with Cullen taking the lead into a crucial conundrum after his opponent, Gabriel Thallon, blanked on the first numbers round. But with neither player spotting FLEROVIUM and despite scoring his lowest ZoomDown total to date, Cullen took the well-earned series crown.

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
4498	7/12/2007	P	Nigel Fisher	54 – 101	Jason Cullen	Des O'Connor	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Michael Aspel	Alison Heard	119
4499	10/12/2007	P	Jason Cullen	77 – 63	Stu Harkness	Des O'Connor	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Henry Blofeld	Alison Heard	122
4500	11/12/2007	P	Jason Cullen	91 – 63	Colin Lawton	Des O'Connor	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Henry Blofeld	Alison Heard	115
4501	12/12/2007	P	Jason Cullen	88 – 78	Helen Sinclair	Des O'Connor	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Henry Blofeld	Alison Heard	128
4509	2/01/2008	P	Jason Cullen	64 – 110	Gayle Smith	Des O'Connor	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Roger Cook	Alison Heard	139
8616	01/10/2025	P	John Pakenham	95 – 109	Jase Cullen	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Mark Radcliffe	Susie Dent	126
8617	02/10/2025	P	Jase Cullen	112 – 74	Denise Taylor	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Mark Radcliffe	Susie Dent	127
8618	03/10/2025	P	Jase Cullen	109 – 20	David Wickenden	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Mark Radcliffe	Susie Dent	120
8619	06/10/2025	P	Jase Cullen	111 – 72	Pete Breitenbach	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Maggie Aderin-Pocock	Susie Dent	129
8620	07/10/2025	P	Jase Cullen	146 – 60	Sukhi Hawkins	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Maggie Aderin-Pocock	Susie Dent	157
8621	08/10/2025	P	Jase Cullen	118 – 48	Richard McCulloch	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Maggie Aderin-Pocock	Susie Dent	123
8622	09/10/2025	P	Jase Cullen	113 – 60	Neil Sneddon	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Maggie Aderin-Pocock	Susie Dent	134
8623	10/10/2025	P	Jase Cullen	108 – 48	Guy Barry	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Maggie Aderin-Pocock	Susie Dent	119
8667	11/12/2025	QF	Jase Cullen	121 – 43	Shemina Kirby	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Nisha Katona	Susie Dent	126
8671	17/12/2025	SF	Jase Cullen	116 – 78	John Payne	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Christopher Biggins	Susie Dent	130
8673	19/12/2025	GF	Jase Cullen	118 – 76	Brett Davids	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Christopher Biggins	Susie Dent	131