Taboola has revealed its analysis of the top news stories read online in Australia during 2022.
In 2022, the world went from worrying about one huge problem — Covid-19 — to worrying about a smaller Covid-19 problem, in addition to a host of other issues, including other viruses and inflation.
But unlike in 2020 and 2021, at the least most people were allowed to fully engage in the fun things in life again, from international sporting events to world travel.
The Taboola global study also focused on Australia and what caught its attention in 2022, and the top area of interest last year was lotteries – specifically Lotto and Powerball, closely followed by Covid-19.
While Taboola wished that Covid disappeared from the most-read news worldwide in 2022, it instead lingered, as most countries shifted to a “live with it” approach, and was also joined in the headlines by mpox, influenza and RSV.
On the flip side, a much nicer contagion was endemic: World Cup Fever. Known in most of the world as football, soccer dominated the sports narrative in nearly every country, and even managed to catch the attention of Americans.
These are just some of the thousands of stories Taboola’s news, entertainment, sports, health and fitness, technology, business, and finance publishers created in 2022 to inform, fascinate, and sometimes alarm readers.
Which stories riveted audiences the most? It’s all in the pageviews. The Taboola 2022 publisher data and insights reveal which topics, trends, and incidents mattered most to the public, all over the world.
Readership data is aggregated across a network of users on a multitude of publisher sites in Australia.
General News
It’s nice to see happy news dominate the headlines once in a while, and that was the case in Australia this year, where readers focused most on their compatriots who won lottery jackpots. Not to be excluded, the less cheerful topic of Covid also made the chart, particularly in relation to the state of Victoria, where Daniel Andrews, controversial for his handling of the virus, was re-elected Premier.
| Top General News Topics | Number of Pageviews on Taboola’s Network |
| Lotto & Powerball & WA | 165,248,300 |
| Covid & Victoria | 42,005,250 |
| Auckland | 37,445,200 |
Entertainment
Although Australians pay plenty of attention to celebrities and shows from the rest of the English-speaking world, two Australian TV shows, The Block and Home and Away, garnered reader attention this year. The former, a renovation show, shared its billing with its longtime host, Scott Cam, who publicly criticised a couple of local influencers for leaving the show early.
| Top Entertainment Topics | Number of Pageviews on Taboola’s Network |
| Meghan & Harry & Kate | 681,007,350 |
| Death & Anne Heche | 537,018,250 |
| Kim Kardashian | 373,438,300 |
| Woman | 337,537,850 |
| Block & Scott Cam | 331,092,600 |
| Gun | 249,232,900 |
| House of Dragon | 161,918,950 |
| Home & Away | 126,120,000 |
| AFL & Channel | 115,632,550 |
| Marvel & Thor | 76,995,550 |
Finance
Readers of financial news had a very clear focus: rate hikes. This played out with “RBA bank” and “RBA rate” taking the two top slots; both refer to interest rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of Australia. The third most popular topic, “mortgage interest rates” was more of the same.
| Top Finance Topics | Number of Pageviews on Taboola’s Network |
| RBA & Bank | 467,183,200 |
| RBA & Rate | 191,593,150 |
| Mortgage & Interest Rates | 70,643,100 |
| Australians | 62,776,350 |
| Centrelink | 29,271,300 |
| Border & Truckies & WA SA | 29,269,050 |
| Mortgage | 15,809,450 |
| China | 6,772,350 |
| Scam | 2,264,800 |
Business
The Covid pandemic has had a major impact on business worldwide, and even in its third year, this was evident in Australian business news readership. Readers paid attention to how the virus affected business in Western Australia and the city of Perth in particular.
| Top Business Topics | Number of Pageviews on Taboola’s Network |
| WA & Covid | 524,911,350 |
| Covid & Health | 235,521,550 |
| Recall & Chips & Plastic | 106,076,350 |
| WA | 86,489,500 |
| Agriculture & Forestry | 74,972,900 |
| Farmer | 62,940,450 |
| Covid & Perth & WA | 60,492,500 |
| Tax Return | 52,633,900 |
Sports
Covid also continued to hamper the sports world in Australia, with Australian Football League sanctions against teams for Covid protocol violations topping the charts. The State of Origin rugby league competition was also disrupted when a key player was sidelined due to Covid infection.
| Top Sports Topics | Number of Pageviews on Taboola’s Network |
| AFL & Covid & WA | 1,313,345,650 |
| Covid & Origin | 1,073,149,200 |
| Covid | 716,569,200 |
| Nick Kyrgios | 549,478,900 |
| T20 World Cup & England | 517,814,100 |
| World Cup & Qatar | 486,651,350 |
| AFL & Covid | 460,295,250 |
| Cody Simpson & Swimming | 345,751,650 |
| Shark | 315,215,050 |
Health & Fitness
Australia has consistently remained a Covid hotspot. Nowhere is this more evident than in the health news Australians are consuming. Covid-related stories dominated six of the top eight topics there, from the general topic of “disease” to “Covid 19″ on its own, to Covid’s impact on sleep, to Covid in conjunction with mpox.
| Top Health & Fitness Topics | Number of Pageviews on Taboola’s Network |
| Disease | 2,057,121,600 |
| Covid 19 | 1,554,781,000 |
| Covid 19 & Monkeypox | 660,830,650 |
| Covid & China | 390,930,250 |
| Health & Covid | 381,223,450 |
| Alzheimers | 190,871,900 |
| Cancer | 181,005,600 |
| Sleep & Covid | 178,500,800 |
| Covid & Vaccine | 151,658,450 |