I too have a similar issue.
For a client side webpage, I run a simple AJAX query with the payload:
{
type: 'GET',
url: 'https://api.twitch.tv/helix/streams?user_login='+channelname,
headers: {
'Client-ID': 'xxx_my_client_id_xxx'
}
I parse the response and I get channel viewer_count.
Are you saying that with the new OAuth requirement, that I can no longer do any kind of client side query to obtain viewer channel counts anymore? That I MUST Authenticate first and then pass the OAuth token to get the viewer count data I need?