Now that the final tv ratings info is available for the 2018-19 bowl season, I've updated my analysis of the change in tv viewership between the BCS era and the CFP era.

My analysis compares the last four years of the BCS era with the first five years of the CFP era and the most recent three years of the CFP. The results are summarized in the chart below. My complete calculation and supporting date is provided in the attached spreadsheet.



The highlights are as follows.

- For the NY6 bowls plus the National Championship game (7 total games), viewership is up under both CFP periods to 110 million from 96 million during the BCS period.
- For 26 bowls not part of the NY6 for which 9 years' of viewership data is available, viewership is down from 95 million during the BCS era to an average of 87 million during the first five years of the CFP era and to an average of 79.5 million during the most recent three year period.
- For 33 bowls for which 9 years' of viewership data is available, viewership was up from 191 million in the BCS era to 196 million during the first five years of the CFP era, but down to 190 million during the most recent three year period.

In general, it appears that the CFP format is helping the tv viewership of the major bowls and National Championship game, hurting the remaining games, with overall viewership of bowl games being relatively flat.