• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, December 12, 2024

In case you’re wondering, the election was the top news readership topic in 2024, according to an analysis by Taboola.  

Running a distant second was the Midnights album by Taylor Swift. Swift was also the most read-about musician during the year, with more than 3 billion page views.  

Taboola analyzed  hundreds of millions of views on the Taboola publisher network worldwide from January 1 through November 12, 2024. 

Here are the biggest news stories, with their total page views: 

• Election—42,614,562,000 
• Midnights: Taylor Swift’s Album--2,677,710,600
• Olympics--1,752,453,800 
• NFL Draft--892,239,000 
• Boeing Aircraft Issues--558,109,400 
• Jeffrey Epstein Files Made Public--255,356,400
• Met Gala--141,887,800 
• Kentucky Derby—124,797,600 
• US Open—119,623,200 
• Alec Baldwin Involuntary Manslaughter—93,424,600

Meanwhile, Elon Musk was the top business leader in terms of page views--by far:

• Elon Musk--1,027,072,000 
• Jeff Bezos—144,023,000 
• Mark Zuckerberg—114,264,400
• Tim Cook—23,468,400 
• Bob Iger—21,351,200
• Sergey Brin--15,778,400
• Larry Page--8,297,800 
• Satya Nadella--6,970,800
• Jensen Huang—6,132,600 
• Reed Hastings—4,952,000 

The top TV shows was Hacks: Season 3, which pulled 102,664,000 page views. The most-viewed TV awards show was the Oscars, accounting for 643,717,200. 

Second among musicians was Kanye West, who generated 777,805,200 page views. Ed Sheeran was third with 526,531,000 and Beyoncé fourth with 380,216,600.