"Mad Men," "30 Rock" win top Emmy awards

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The comedy "30 Rock" and advertising drama "Mad Men" won television's highest honors for a second year on Sunday on a night where old favorites triumphed over a handful of new faces.

But both shows failed to live up their promise going into the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards.

NBC's satirical "30 Rock," which had a leading 22 nominations, came away with just five, including best actor for Alec Baldwin. But the show's creator Tina Fey, who won last year, lost out this time to Australian Toni Collette in the best comic actress race.

"Phew! That was a nail-biter," said Fey, accepting the best comedy award for "30 Rock." "Thanks for keeping us on the air even though we are more expensive than a talk show."

"Mad Men," the similarly low-rated but acclaimed drama set in the 1960s, won just three of the 16 Emmys for which it had been nominated, including best writing. Last year the AMC show made history by becoming the first series from a cable network other than HBO to win the Emmy for best drama.

"I may be the only person in the room with complete creative freedom. That's why the show is so good," said "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner, who won the Emmy for best writing for a drama series.

Glenn Close repeated her win for best dramatic actress for her role as a ruthless lawyer in "Damages" on the FX cable channel. Accepting her award, Close called it "the character of my lifetime."

Bryan Cranston, who plays a chemistry teacher who turns to drug dealing to pay for his medical bills in "Breaking Bad" on AMC, was also a repeat as best actor in a drama.

Despite expanding the number of nominees this year in a bid to acknowledge the range of offerings on more than 120 network and cable channels available to American viewers, upstarts like Fox's irreverent cartoon series "Family Guy" and HBO's polygamy drama "Big Love" went home empty-handed.

And there were no surprises in the reality competition show category. "Amazing Race," won for a 7th straight year, beating rivals "American Idol," "Dancing with the Stars," "Top Chef" and "Project Runway."

"PUT DOWN THE REMOTE"

Host Neil Patrick Harris, star of the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother," kicked off the live telecast with a comic song and dance routine called "Put down the Remote" that urged viewers to resist the urge to switch channels or go online.

Last year's Emmy telecast attracted the smallest audience in the awards show's history, with just 12.2 million viewers.

In a bid to give viewers a bigger voice in a ceremony that mostly rewards shows with modest audiences rather than popular favorites, the Academy on Sunday asked viewers to vote online during the telecast for the "breakthrough moment of the year."

The award was won for a scene from the vampire series "True Blood" on HBO. 

Kristin Chenoweth won best supporting comic actress for "Pushing Daisies," a show canceled earlier this year by ABC.

"I'm unemployed now, so I'd like to be on 'Mad Men,' Chenoweth joked, adding "Thank you so much to the Academy for recognizing a show that's no longer on the air."

HBO's "Grey Gardens" -- about the eccentric relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy -- won six Emmys, including best TV movie. But the BBC production of Charles Dickens tale "Little Dorritt," aired on PBS, did better with seven Emmys, including outstanding miniseries.

HBO is a unit of Time Warner Inc. ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Co; NBC is a division of the NBC Universal unit of General Electric Co; Fox and FX are part of News Corp. Showtime and CBS is part of CBS Corp; AMC is owned by Cablevision Systems Corp.