Old friends rule at Emmys

The West Wing, Friends and UK drama The Gathering Storm were the winners at the Emmys ceremony in Los Angeles - but heavily nominated show Six Feet Under lost out.

With 23 nominations the show had been expected to take a number of awards in the major categories but it was unsuccessful.

Instead, for the third consecutive year, The West Wing was named Best Drama while its cast picked up several acting awards.

And the veteran UK actor, Albert Finney, was named Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm.

Ridley Scott, the film's executive producer, said Finney's interpretation of the role had been "quite brilliant".

The US Home Box Office network produced the film with the BBC.

It also picked up an award for Outstanding Writing and was named outstanding Made for Television Movie.

A charity telethon broadcast 10 days after the 11 September attacks - America: A Tribute to Heroes - was awarded an Emmy for outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special.

"It belong with the millions of people who responded to the broadcast by opening their hearts and wallets to those who were hurting and above all it belongs to the friends, family and loved ones of those were lost on September 11," said executive producer Joel Gallen.

Second award

In other awards for The West Wing, John Spencer, who plays the president's chief executive, Leo McGarry, in the White House drama, was named Outstanding Supporting.

Once again, Allison Janney took Best Actress for her role as CJ Cregg. Stockard Channing was named Outstanding Supporting Actress as the First Lady, Abigail Bartlet.

Channing was also named outstanding supporting actress for her role as Judy Shepard on the Matthew Shepard Story - the dramatised account of the gay teenager's murder.

'Greatest years'

Friends finally won the accolade of Best Comedy at the start of its ninth season. Jennifer Aniston was named Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Rachel.

"This has been the greatest nine years of my entire life," said a teary Aniston.

Aniston's better half, Brad Pitt, who made a one-off appearance on Friends in the last series, lost out to Frasier's Anthony LaPaglia, for the honour of Outstanding Guest actor in a comedy.

Ray Romano picked up his first ever Emmy for his lead actor role in the family sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.

The cult comedy series, Sex and the City took the award for Outstanding Directing while the real time drama series, 24, won for Outstanding Writing for a drama.

The Late Show with David Letterman won the battle for late night chat supremacy. The long running talk show was named Best Variety, Music or Comedy Series. Letterman, who never turns up at awards shows, was again absent.

Another UK winner not on hand to pick up his award was Sting.

The singer won the Emmy for outstanding individual performance on his concert, Sting in Tuscan...All this Time that was broadcast on the US A&E network.

The audience was told that Sting is currently recording an album in Europe.

The World War II epic drama, Band of Brothers, was named Outstanding Miniseries. Tom Hanks accepted the award for directing the drama.

"All we did was bring to fiction what happened in history - it is our great pleasure," he said.

Hanks also presented the first Bob Hope Humanitarian award to chat show host, Oprah Winfrey.

"This award to me means I will continue to strive to give back to the world what it has given to me so that I might be even more worthy of tonight's honour, she said.