This past week marked the return of the broadcast season and as a result, this list is dominated by broadcast shows. That's a good thing because the cable shows haven't fared too well.

1. Scandal (12.16 million 3.9)- The people at ABC are very happy with the results of their entire Thursday night lineup. They spent a lot of time and money promoting the night and they got the results they wanted. Now they have to hope that they have people hooked and they can take advantage of all of these weak NFL matchups so they can continue to rack up wins on Thursdays.

2. Chicago Fire (9.14 million 2.6)- I do think these are good numbers but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think this was mostly due to The Voice. This show isn’t going to be behind The Voice for the entire season because The Voice isn’t going to air for 2 hours on Tuesdays for the entire season. That means this show is at the mercy of whatever comes before this show (If I’m not mistaken it is 2 comedies) and when that happens this demo will drop.

3. Chicago PD (8.51 million 1.9)- This demo looks alarming when compared to Chicago Fire but you have to remember that Wednesdays are going to be an older skewing night than Tuesdays are. I’m also under the impression that the viewer and demo loss from this show will be smaller over time than that of Chicago Fire so the differences probably won’t be so great going forward.

4. Big Brother (6.92 million 2.6)- This ended on a fairly high note and no one was surprised about this getting a renewal for next summer. What was surprising was that CBS gave this show a 2 year renewal. It is a strong summer show and they don’t have much to depend on but 2 years is looking a little bit far ahead unless it is a given that next year will be a season full of throwaway twists that may or may not breathe new life into the show.

5. Atlanta Exes (1.477 million 0.8)- I’ve been hard on this show. I’ve been hard on it because it didn’t really do much with the opportunity given to it the first 5 weeks of the season and I think VH1 needs to cool it with the spinoffs when the main shows aren’t all that healthy themselves. It is currently the 7th ranked show for VH1 this year but depending on how many more shows premiere on Mondays (There are at least 2 coming but I wouldn’t be surprised if they sneak in as many as 4 by the end of the year), then the show has a chance to slide all the way down to #10. That being said, VH1’s expectations have proven to be quite low this year and the one pro this show has in its favor is that it has higher ratings than the most recent season of its mother show Hollywood Exes so I don’t really see a scenario where this show gets canceled. I do see this show coming back sometime next year but I don’t think a spot on Mondays will be assured for it.

6. Nashville (5.80 million 1.5)- ABC put themselves in a very awkward predicament here. This show really shouldn’t have been renewed because doing so was going to put it on the same path as Revenge (being stuck with a low rated third season show and then being forced to drag it to a fourth season for syndication money). Now that all of ABC’s fall dramas have premiered, this show is tied with Revenge for the lowest rated drama on the network. Since this is the premiere it is likely to only get worse from here and that is going to make the people at ABC feel very uncomfortable from now until early May.

7. Awkward (1.219 million 0.7)- MTV knows this is pretty much a lost year for them. Nobody is paying much attention to them and they are just soldering on with the shows they have. This show had a pretty average return. These numbers aren’t exceptionally high for this show and they aren’t exceptionally low either. As long as the show doesn’t deviate too far from this direction (I’m talking about lower numbers here) then the show should be just fine.

8. Once Upon a Time (10.20 million 3.7)- ABC took a gamble with choosing the storyline for this new season. They used a pretty popular animated movie and decided to go with it and it paid off because these numbers are good. If it can hold up for most of the season then it would be a successful rejuvenation for a show and perhaps a lineup that was most likely going to be in big trouble this year if this show didn’t have a strong return (That doesn’t excuse Revenge from being in danger because it is).

9. Masters of Sex (889,000 0.3)- This came up a little for the finale but this is just going to be one of those shows that just won’t attract very many viewers. Since Showtime doesn’t have too much to depend on (Ray Donovan is growing into a dependable show and Homeland is still the current standard-bearer of the network), this show will just have to work with being a #3 show and try to use some of that critical acclaim in its favor.

10. Rich Kids of Beverly Hills (575,000 0.3)- This is one of those shows to me where I can never quite understand why the network believes it is a hit. This show is only different from other shows because it holds on to the Kardashian audience a little better than most other shows they have tried. Outside of that, it has been proven that the show can’t stand on its own and the people who watch Total Divas aren’t interested in this show either. My personal belief is that the show needs to be canceled but if for some reason a third season appears then what I said here will be the reason why it happened.