In many ways, 2022 was a post-Covid year, not because the deadly virus has been eradicated but because other occurrences and events dominated the news cycle for the first time in two years.
This year, the most popular articles on indianexpress.com were not about Covid-19, but rather on the war in Ukraine and its global impact. This year, at least fifty percent of our top twenty stories were tied to Ukraine and Russia. Intriguingly, the most-read article of the year was our foreign affairs editor Nirupama Subramanian’s interview with Alexey Kupriyanov, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russian Academy of Sciences, who compared Ukraine to Pakistan for Russia.
The March elections in Uttar Pradesh received the most attention in India, followed by the Union Budget and the political turmoil in Maharashtra. Gujarat, Punjab, and Himachal elections lacked the pan-Indian popularity of Yogi Adityanath’s re-election. Given that the Delhi municipal corporation elections were portrayed as a contest between the ruling party and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has become the dominant force in the nation’s capital, the entire country closely followed the results. This also lays the ground for the 2023 elections for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
In the post-Covid era, the majority of individuals appear to have made healthy living a priority. Our article on how bathing habits can affect digestion broke numerous records. In fact, it was read by millions more than our CT-value explanation, which was the most-read article of the previous year.
Additionally, two tragic deaths seem to have shook India this year. The vehicle accident that led to industrialist Cyrus Mistry’s death and musician KK’s death were among this year’s most-read stories.
Delhi and Mumbai were the locations producing the greatest interest with their stories, followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka. The BJP generated the most attention during the year, followed by Congress.
There are no surprises in identifying the most popular person of the year as Narendra Modi, however the level of attention appears to have decreased slightly. According to our analytics, the second most popular individual was Alia Bhat, who was also our guest at Express Adda this year.
The year 2022 was also the first in which we offered a complete digital membership, and we discovered that our most faithful readers had a vastly different reading pattern than the general public. Subscribers to Express enjoy reading our daily Editorials and Opinions and our new Political Pulse and UPSC sections.
The Old Pension Scheme article by P Vaidyanathan Iyer was the most popular among paying readers.
Our research articles on the disputes between Nehru and Ambedkar and the Chola dynasty were also well-liked among this expanding audience of premium readers. Along with their daily crosswords and sudoku, our new paid Pages from the Past podcast series about the few princely kingdoms that refused to join India was also quite popular with this demographic.
Throughout the year, our group of registered users found the entertainment and health areas to be particularly engaging. The most popular piece with this readership was the open letter to Indians written by Ukrainian writer Anastasia Piliavsky. The article by Anil Dias on the humiliation of chess grandmaster S L Narayanan in the Bundesliga chess league was also quite popular among these readers.
A major portion of our hundreds of millions of viewers visit us at least once every two days, according to statistics from the analytics platform Chartbeat, spending significantly more time on the site and reading far more stories than others. This is evidence of the fascinating times in which we live, in which online readers are growing increasingly loyal and demanding. This assures that we will keep our commitment for many years to come, which is to provide you with new stories every day.
Yearender-2022
