Top Shows Query With Deduping | Dataford Interview Questions

Write a query to find the top five most-watched TV shows or streams on Nyc Staffing’s platform for a specific month, accounting for duplicate user sessions.

Use February 2025 as the target month. Treat records with the same user, show, and session start time as duplicate sessions, retaining only the earliest session record.

Output

One row per show, with show_id, show_title, unique_viewers, and total_watch_minutes
Include only the five most-watched shows in the target month
Order by unique viewers descending, total watch minutes descending, then show title ascending

Schema

shows

Column	Type	Description
show_idPK	INT	Unique identifier for the show
show_title	VARCHAR(150)	Display title of the show or stream

viewing_sessions

Column	Type	Description
session_idPK	INT	Unique identifier for the recorded session
user_id	INT	Identifier of the viewing user
show_id	INT	Show watched during the session
session_started_at	TIMESTAMP	Timestamp when the session began
watch_minutes	INT	Minutes watched during the session

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