If you want to access video statistics, you can make use of the latest YouTube Data API v3.

Specifically, when retrieving a video, the statistics section will include the number of viewCount:

You can find more details in the documentation:

https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/videos#resource

The view count information can be accessed either on the client side or server side by utilizing one of the available client libraries:

https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/libraries

To test the API call, refer to this link in the documentation:

https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/docs/videos/list

Below is an example of how to request and receive data:

Request:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?part=statistics&id=Q5mHPo2yDG8&key={YOUR_API_KEY}

Authorization:  Bearer ya29.AHES6ZSCT9BmIXJmjHlRlKMmVCU22UQzBPRuxzD7Zg_09hsG
X-JavaScript-User-Agent:  Google APIs Explorer

Response:

200 OK

- Show headers -

{
 "kind": "youtube#videoListResponse",
 "etag": "\"g-RLCMLrfPIk8n3AxYYPPliWWoo/dZ8K81pnD1mOCFyHQkjZNynHpYo\"",
 "pageInfo": {
  "totalResults": 1,
  "resultsPerPage": 1
 },
 "items": [
  {

   "id": "Q5mHPo2yDG8",
   "kind": "youtube#video",
   "etag": "\"g-RLCMLrfPIk8n3AxYYPPliWWoo/4NA7C24hM5mprqQ3sBwI5Lo9vZE\"",
   "statistics": {
    "viewCount": "36575966",
    "likeCount": "127569",
    "dislikeCount": "5715",
    "favoriteCount": "0",
    "commentCount": "20317"
   }
  }
 ]
}

The API Version 2 has been obsolete since March of 2014, which is being used by some of the responses here.

Below is a straightforward code snippet to fetch the number of views from a video using JQuery in YouTube API v3.

You must generate an API key through Google Developer Console before proceeding.

<script>
  $.getJSON('https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?part=statistics&id=Qq7mpb-hCBY&key={{YOUR-KEY}}', function(data) {
    alert("viewCount: " + data.items[0].statistics.viewCount);
  });
</script>

Here is a snippet of code that can be used to extract Youtube video views from a URL using JavaScript

Check out the demo for the code below

function getVideoViews() {
    var regex = /[a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]{11}/,
        videoUrl = $('input').val() === '' ? alert('Enter a valid Url') : $('input').val(),
        videoId = videoUrl.match(regex),
        jsonUrl = 'http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/' + videoId + '?v=2&alt=json',
        embedUrl = '//www.youtube.com/embed/' + videoId,
        embedCode = '<iframe width="350" height="197" src="' + embedUrl + '" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>'
        
    // Fetch Views from JSON
    $.getJSON(jsonUrl, function(videoData) {
        var videoJson = JSON.stringify(videoData),
            vidJson = JSON.parse(videoJson),
            views = vidJson.entry.yt$statistics.viewCount;
        $('.views').text(views);
    });
    
    // Embed Video
    $('.videoembed').html(embedCode);
}

Why bother with an API key when you can simply extract a snippet of public HTML!

Here's a basic Unix command line example using curl, grep, and cut.

curl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-y7jzGxKNo | grep watch7-views-info | cut -d">" -f8 | cut -d"<" -f1

Yes, it retrieves the entire HTML page, but the benefits far outweigh this minimal inconvenience.

To utilize youtube-dl along with jq:

videoViews() {
    videoID=$1
    youtube-dl -j https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=$videoID |
        jq -r '.["view_count"]'
}

videoViews uJ9GxOwX4NM

Here is another method you can utilize:

<?php
    $youtube_view_count = json_decode(file_get_contents('http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/wGG543FeHOE?v=2&alt=json'))->entry->{'yt$statistics'}->viewCount;
    echo $youtube_view_count;
    ?>

Check out the Google PHP API Client library here: https://github.com/google/google-api-php-client

If you need to retrieve YouTube statistics for a specific video ID, you can use this small class as a starting point. You can expand on it by exploring the rest of the API documentation available here:

class YouTubeVideo
{
    // Video ID
    public $id;

    // Get your API key from https://console.developers.google.com/apis
    private $apiKey = 'REPLACE_ME';

    // Google YouTube service
    private $youtube;

    public function __construct($id)
    {
        $client = new Google_Client();
        $client->setDeveloperKey($this->apiKey);

        $this->youtube = new Google_Service_YouTube($client);

        $this->id = $id;
    }

   /*
     * @return Google_Service_YouTube_VideoStatistics
     */
    public function getStatistics()
    {
        try{
            $response = $this->youtube->videos->listVideos("statistics",
                array('id' => $this->id));

            $googleService = current($response->items);
            if($googleService instanceof Google_Service_YouTube_Video) {
                return $googleService->getStatistics();
            }
        } catch (Google_Service_Exception $e) {
            return sprintf('<p>A service error occurred: <code>%s</code></p>',
                htmlspecialchars($e->getMessage()));
        } catch (Google_Exception $e) {
            return sprintf('<p>An client error occurred: <code>%s</code></p>',
                htmlspecialchars($e->getMessage()));
        }
    }
}

Check out this neat function written in PHP that retrieves the view count of a YouTube video. To make it work, you'll need to have your own YouTube Data API Key (v3). Don't worry if you don't have one yet, you can easily acquire it for free from: YouTube Data API

//Let's set a constant so we can use the API KEY globally within our application    
define("YOUTUBE_DATA_API_KEY", 'YOUR_YOUTUBE_DATA_API_KEY');

function get_youtube_views($video_id) {
    $json = file_get_contents("https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?part=statistics&id=" . $video_id . "&key=". YOUTUBE_DATA_API_KEY );
    $jsonData = json_decode($json);
    $views = $jsonData->items[0]->statistics->viewCount;
    return $views;
}

//Don't forget to replace YOUTUBE_VIDEO_ID with your actual YouTube video Id
echo get_youtube_views('YOUTUBE_VIDEO_ID');

I've implemented this solution successfully in my project and it's currently operational. Simply grab your API Key and YouTube video ID, then insert them into the specified lines in the code snippet above and you're ready to roll.

Discover the YouTube Data API v3 with this URL Example

Check out the Source Link here

View the YouTube Data API v3 URL Sample here

Check out the yt:statistics tag for essential data. This tag includes information like viewCount, videoWatchCount, and favoriteCount.

One instance I’d like to share is from my application called TubeCount, which showcases the use of filtering JSON results using the fields parameter.

In this scenario, the following code snippet demonstrates how specific fields can be extracted from a JSON response:

var fields = "fields=openSearch:totalResults,entry(title,media:group(yt:videoid),media:group(yt:duration),media:group(media:description),media:group(media:thumbnail[@yt:name='default'](@url)),yt:statistics,yt:rating,published,gd:comments(gd:feedLink(@countHint)))";

var channel = "wiibart";

$.ajax({
    url: "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/"+channel+"/uploads?"+fields+"&v=2&alt=json",
    success: function(data){

        var len = data.feed.entry.length;

        for(var k =0; k<len; k++){
            var yt = data.feed.entry[k];
            v.count = Number(yt.yt$statistics != undefined && yt.yt$statistics.viewCount != undefined ? yt.yt$statistics.viewCount : 0);
        }
    }
});

Using PHP to Retrieve JSON Data

$jsonURL = file_get_contents("https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?id=$Videoid&key={YOUR-API-KEY}&part=statistics");
$json = json_decode($jsonURL);

Start by uncommenting the following line:

//var_dump(json);

Then extract the view count like this:

$vcounts = $json->{'items'}[0]->{'statistics'}->{'viewCount'};

When working with JQuery, make sure to change the Your-Api-Key string in the code snippet below. To obtain your own API key, visit the Google Developers Console.

<script>
    $.getJSON('https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videospart=statistics&id=Qq7mpb-hCBY&key=Your-Api-Key', function(data) {
        console.log("viewCount: ", data.items[ 0 ].statistics.viewCount);
    });
</script>