How to Find Content Gaps by Extracting a Competitor's Playlists
One channel's playlists show you what they cover. Several channels' playlists, compared, show you what nobody in the niche has covered yet.
Published 26 September 2026 · 7 min readContent gap analysis usually starts with one competitor and a hunch. The problem is that a single channel only shows you what one creator decided to make — it can't tell you whether that's what the whole niche has settled on, or just what they happened to try first.
The gap only shows up when you look across several channels at once and notice what none of them have a playlist for. This guide covers how to pull playlist lists from multiple competitors, turn them into a single coverage map, and separate a real gap from a topic nobody wants.
Why gaps show up between channels, not within one
Studying one channel tells you what that channel does. It can't tell you whether "Beginner Tutorials" is a smart bet or something every channel in the space already has covered three times over. A topic that looks like an opening on one channel might be table stakes the moment you check a second.
The reverse is just as useful: a topic that shows up on none of two or three competitor channels, despite fitting the niche, is a much stronger signal than a single missing playlist on one channel — it suggests the whole space has left it open, not that one creator just hasn't gotten to it yet.
Playlists, not individual uploads
Extracting playlists from several competitors
Pick 2–3 direct competitors
Extract each channel's playlist list separately
Export each as CSV or Excel
Combine the files into one sheet
Building the coverage map
With every competitor's playlist list in one sheet, the comparison itself is a single pass:
| Step | What you're doing |
|---|---|
| Group by theme | Add a "theme" column and bucket each playlist title — "Beginner", "Reviews", "Case Studies" and so on — across all channels at once. |
| Pivot by channel × theme | A quick pivot table with themes as rows and channels as columns shows, at a glance, which themes every channel has and which are missing from one or more. |
| Weight by video count | A theme where a competitor has one 3-video playlist is a much weaker claim on the topic than one with a 60-video playlist — use the count column to tell a real commitment from a dabble. |
Reading the gaps that are actually worth filling
Not every empty cell in the pivot is worth chasing. Three checks separate a real opportunity from noise:
- It fits the niche. A theme with zero coverage that's adjacent to what every competitor already does is a gap; a theme unrelated to the niche entirely is just off-topic.
- There's demand for it. Cross-check the theme against search or keyword volume separately — a gap with no search demand behind it is a topic nobody's asking for, not an opportunity.
- Coverage is thin, not absent. A theme where only one competitor has a small, stale playlist is nearly as open as one with zero coverage — a well-built playlist can still out-compete a single forgotten one.
The strongest gaps repeat across every competitor
What a gap map can't tell you
The playlist-level comparison is a map of what's been organized into a series, not a complete picture of every video a channel has ever posted — a topic could exist as scattered one-off uploads without ever getting its own playlist. Treat the gap map as a strong starting point for ideas, then verify a promising gap by checking the channel's uploads directly before committing a content calendar to it.
How MyFreshTools helps
What the tool does
The Channel Playlist Extractor reads through a channel's full playlist list and returns each one's title, video count, link and date as a downloadable file — run it once per competitor and the results are ready to combine into a single comparison sheet.
Who it's for
- Content strategists building a quarterly plan around a proven, uncovered theme.
- Marketers pitching a niche and needing evidence of an actual opening in it.
- Creators deciding what to make next based on what the competition hasn't touched.
How to use it
- Run one extraction per competitor channel — a URL, @handle or name is all it needs.
- Export each as CSV or Excel and combine them into one sheet with a channel column.
- Group playlist titles into themes and pivot channel × theme to see the gaps.
Requirements and limits
- A free MyFreshTools account. No card, free credits on signup.
- 1 credit per channel extraction — comparing three channels costs three credits.
- A bare channel URL, @handle or name returns only that channel's public playlists.
- Returns playlist-level metadata — title, count, link, date — not the individual videos inside each playlist.
Frequently asked questions
Two or three is usually enough to separate table-stakes topics — the ones everyone covers — from real gaps. A single channel only shows you what one creator does, not what the niche as a whole has left open.
The extraction itself returns each channel's playlist titles, video counts, links and dates — that's the coverage map. To read the videos inside a specific playlist, export it separately with the playlist exporter.
A gap is worth filling when there's audience demand for it — check search or keyword volume separately — and no competitor playlist is actively serving it. A topic with no coverage and no demand is just a topic nobody cares about.
No. A channel URL, @handle or name only returns that channel's public playlists — there's no way to see a competitor's private or unlisted lists, only your own once you connect your account.
One credit per channel extraction on a free MyFreshTools account. Comparing three competitors is three extractions, three credits — well within the free credits a new account starts with.
The takeaway
One competitor's playlists tell you what they cover. Two or three, extracted and compared side by side, tell you what the whole niche has left open — and that gap, checked against real demand, is a far stronger starting point than copying whatever the biggest channel happens to be doing.