What a strange phenomenon is the cult quiz show Countdown. It has aired on Channel 4 since 1982 so its longevity indicates success yet it has never won an award. It is on during the early afternoon, so must be mainly watched by the elderly or young mums yet it would be hard to find a British person who has never seen it. Its format is simple, traditional and comforting yet is extremely difficult to win.

Copied from a French show, the quiz was originally hosted by the avuncular Richard Whitely and the young, beautiful and very brainy Carol Vorderman. The format is thus: two contestants compete to solve word and maths problems. For the word section, they each select nine letters – three vowels and four consonants – then, against the clock, they make the longest word they can from these letters. The contestant with the longer word wins points.

Basically a Scrabble format, finding the word is extremely difficult. The resulting word is checked by someone with the Oxford English Dictionary to make sure it’s genuine and is helped by a minor celebrity.

The maths section is, in my opinion, even harder. I’m not even going to attempt to explain it here, but this is where maths genius Carol Vorderman comes in and solves the conundrum if the contestant cannot (even she has problems sometimes).

The show has gone through a series of male presenters. The popular Richard Whitely, famous for his puns, presented the show for over 20 years till his death in 2005. Then Des Lynam took over followed by Des O’Connor who retired in 2007. Now the host is Jeff Stelling.

Carol Vorderman was forced out when her huge salary was judged excessive by Channel 4 bosses in these credit crunch times. This actually made national news, such is the standing of this quaint quiz show. A tearful Carol left the show and there was a huge search for her replacement. The new Carol had to be young, pretty and photogenic, very good at maths and also be a good presenter and communicator. The search was on!

From a thousand applicants, the winner was Rachel Riley an Oxford mathematics graduate.

Over the years, Countdown has also been the butt of many jokes. In the film About A Boy starring Hugh Grant and Nicholas Hoult, the idle character Will (played by Grant) spends his days sitting around watching Countdown. The show was also lampooned on the comedy A Bit of Fry And Laurie and by French and Saunders. The quiz was also briefly mentioned in The Office when Chris Finch makes fun of university graduate Ricky by saying he was just a Professor of Countdown (meaning like all students he just sat around in the day watching television). A futuristic version of the show is also satirised in a Dr Who episode.

There is no suggestion that Countdown will be axed by Channel 4 any time soon. But the question is - what makes it so popular and now has it so firmly printed itself on the national consciousness?