Competitor channels → weekly brief

Watching three competitors' channels is a part-time job. Checking what they published is free, and reading only the new videos takes minutes, not hours.

What you get

  • What each competitor published since last week
  • Topics, product claims and offers mentioned, with quotes
  • Patterns across channels: what they are all pushing right now

With an AI assistant

Connect the MCP server to Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor, then paste:

For each of these channels: @competitorA, @competitorB, @competitorC, get the latest uploads and keep only videos from the last 7 days. Read each new video's transcript. Write a brief per channel: topics, product claims, offers or prices mentioned (quote them with [m:ss]), and calls to action. End with three patterns you see across all channels.

With the API

Set GYT_API_KEY to a key from the developers page. Each transcript or list page costs one credit; checking a channel's latest uploads is free.

  1. 1. Check each channel for new uploads (free)

    curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $GYT_API_KEY" \
  "https://getyoutubetranscript.com/api/v1/channel/latest?channel=@mkbhd"

  2. 2. Read only the new videos (1 credit each)

    curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $GYT_API_KEY" \
  "https://getyoutubetranscript.com/api/v1/transcript?v=VIDEO_ID"

Limits to know

  • The free latest-uploads check returns the channel home tab's latest shelf; use /channel/videos for a full back catalogue.

Tools for this workflow

Channel transcripts tooln8n integration

Questions

What does a weekly run cost?

Checking channels is free, so you only pay one credit per new video read. Three channels posting twice a week is about six credits.

Can it run automatically?

Yes: schedule the same calls in n8n, Zapier or a cron job and send the brief to Slack or email.

More workflows

EducationYouTube playlist → study notesA 20-lecture course is ten hours of video and about an hour of reading. Get the reading.EducationLectures → flashcards & quizzesTesting yourself beats rewatching. Build the questions from the transcript.DevelopersPlaylist → RAG corpusIndex what a channel said, chunked on caption timings, with links that open at the right second.ContentYouTube video → blog postA post built from what was said, not a generic article on the same topic.ContentOne video → a week of postsThe best hooks are lines someone already said out loud.AutomationNew uploads → summarized alertsA free check for new videos, a credit only when there is something new.