Response Payload incorrect using Youtube Data API

Question

I'm trying to use Youtube's Data API to get some info on various channels, but when I run my build:

youtube = build('youtube', 'v3',developerKey=api_key)


request = youtube.channels().list(
    part = "statistics",
    forUsername = "tonetalks"
)
response = request.execute()
print(response)

It returns this:

{'kind': 'youtube#channelListResponse', 'etag': 'RuuXzTIr0OoDqI4S0RU6n4FqKEM', 'pageInfo': {'totalResults': 0, 'resultsPerPage': 5}}

Any thoughts how to fix this ?

Answer 1

The forUsername is incorrect. If you're looking for this "tonetalks" channel, you'll have to use its id UCfP8rCe_fAITriqI3UPYF0Q (from the above channel URL):

request = youtube.channels().list(
    part = "statistics",
    id = "UCfP8rCe_fAITriqI3UPYF0Q",
)

{
  "kind": "youtube#channelListResponse",
  "etag": "5gs56_i4Xd_fQ4A1OkQEnWWnX7A",
  "pageInfo": {
    "totalResults": 1,
    "resultsPerPage": 5
  },
  "items": [
    {
      "kind": "youtube#channel",
      "etag": "m7gogJwH4TshrBX4PCiuFP5MsJI",
      "id": "UCfP8rCe_fAITriqI3UPYF0Q",
      "statistics": {
        "viewCount": "6033544",
        "subscriberCount": "81200",
        "hiddenSubscriberCount": false,
        "videoCount": "229"
      }
    }
  ]
}