AMC's 'Mad Men,' NBC's '30 Rock' Split Top WGA Honors

Cable and broadcast writers divided up the spoils Saturday night as Mad Men and 30 Rock continued to line their respective mantels, while Charles Gibson got a farewell nod for network news.

Writers for AMC's retro advertising drama Mad Men won the Writers Guild America award for best drama, while the scribes for NBC's 30 Rock grabbed the bling for best comedy series.

That came in bi-coastal ceremonies for the Writers Guild of America, East and West, Feb. 20 at the Hudson Theatre in New York and the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in L.A.

ABC's Modern Family took the prize for best new series writing.

Other winners included House, "Broken," parts one and two (episodic drama); 30 Rock's "Apollo, Apollo"; and the Modern Family pilot (episodic comedy); Lifetime's Georgia O'Keefe (long-form original); HBO's Taking Chance (long-form, adaptation); The Simpson's (Fox) "Wedding for Disaster" (animation); NBC's Saturday Night Live and Comedy Central's The Daily Show (comedy/variety); Film Independent's 2009 Spirit Awards (awards/tributes/specials); CBS's Young & the Restless (daytime serial); childen's Nickelodeon's Welcome to the Jungle; Another Cinderella, ABC Family (childen's script); The Madoff Affair, PBS, (documentary, current events); The Trials of Robert Oppenheimer, PBS (documentary, non-current events; World News Tonight (news, bulletin or breaking report); Bill Moyers Journal (PBS) A Private War: Expose: America's Investigative Reports (news, analysis, feature or commentary).

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.