The comedy Modern Family led Walt Disney's ABC to five Emmy awards, the most of any network, ending an eight-year winning streak by Time Warner's HBO.
Modern Family, the ensemble satire that looks at the complicated makeup of families today, won as best comedy series a second straight year, garnering supporting-actor statuettes for Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen, plus best writing and directing.
AMC Networks' Mad Men captured the award for best dramatic series for a fourth year during Fox's telecast of the 63rd prime-time Emmy awards last night at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. CBS, HBO and PBS each garnered four wins.
The relative parity underscores resurgent artistic competition in television. Downton Abbey won four awards, beating HBO's Mildred Pierce head-to-head, including for overall show, writing and directing.
The success of Downton Abbey is a David and Goliath story, Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton said. "HBO has tremendous marketing muscle," Ms Eaton said. "When a programme like Downton Abbey wins, it stands on its own merits, and the Academy recognised this."
Film Heavyweights HBO relied on big-screen heavyweights such as Martin Scorsese and Kate Winslet for its wins. Scorsese won his first Emmy, for directing the pilot of Boardwalk Empire, and Winslet won for best actress in a miniseries for Mildred Pierce. Working on a television series gives the director more freedom than film, Scorsese said to reporters backstage. He said developing long-form movies for television has been an aim since the 1960s. "I personally feel that this is the opportunity," Scorsese said.
"Maybe even more so than in independent cinema."
In Modern Family, Burrell and Bowen play husband and wife Phil and Claire Dunphy. The show also follows a gay couple and a heterosexual couple with decades in age between them.
Bloomberg