Lifetime Lands How I Met Your Mother Reruns

Lifetime has locked up exclusive cable rerun rights to How I Met Your Mother says The Hollywood Reporter. The half-hour comedy is set to air as a strip starting in fall 2010, joining a schedule that includes such other off-net comedies as Reba, Still Standing, Will & Grace and Frasier. The show fetched around $725,000 per episode in a highly competitive bidding situation that included at least six interested cable networks. It was considered a hot property because of the diminishing number of off-network sitcoms coming available.

Lifetime’s four-year licensing deal includes up to eight seasons of How I Met Your Mother, should the CBS comedy run that long. How I Met Your Mother had a big fourth-season premiere Monday, jumping 21% in the ratings over last season.