Top Genres by Demographic | Dataford Interview Questions

Warner Bros. Discovery wants to compare viewing preferences across user demographic groups. Write a SQL query to find the three most-watched content genres for each demographic group during the 30-day reporting period ending on September 18, 2026.

Output

Return one row per demographic and genre ranking, with columns demographic_group, genre, total_minutes, and genre_rank.
Include only sessions in the reporting period, and exclude rows with a NULL demographic group or genre.
Return up to three genres per demographic, ordered by total watched minutes descending. Break ties alphabetically by genre.
Order the final result by demographic group and genre rank.

Schema

streaming_sessions

Column	Type	Description
session_idPK	INT	Unique streaming session identifier
user_id	INT	User associated with the session
content_id	INT	Content watched during the session
session_start	TIMESTAMP	Session start timestamp
minutes_watched	INT	Minutes watched during the session

users

Column	Type	Description
user_idPK	INT	Unique user identifier
demographic_group	VARCHAR(50)	User demographic classification

content

Column	Type	Description
content_idPK	INT	Unique content identifier
content_title	VARCHAR(150)	Title of the content
genre	VARCHAR(50)	Primary content genre

Your question is Top Genres by Demographic. Start with the requirements and the three tables in the Question tab.

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Problem