FX Picks Up 'How I Met Your Mother' Reruns In Non-Exclusive Deal

[Brian Damage]

In a pretty creative arrangement, FX and Lifetime will share off-network syndication rights to hit CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother beginning this fall. Lifetime landed the rights to the hit multicamera comedy in 2008 for about $725,000 an episode. As part of a four-year deal, it started airing HIMYM this past fall. The exclusive window in the deal expires in September, and that's when Lifetime will start sharing the series with FX. The spli t window is pretty inventive as there is virtually no audience overlap between the male-skewing FX and female-centric Lifetime. And the arrangement also solves problems for both networks.

FX has been looking hard for a companion to its off-network series Two and a Half Men. The cable network made a play for another CBS comedy, The Big Bang Theory but dropped out of the bidding when the price got too high. As part of the same CBS comedy block as Men, HIMYM is probably the next most compatible comedy for Men after Big Bang.

On the other hand, new Lifetime topper Nancy Dubuc has been looking to unload some of the hodgepodge mix of expensive off-network series that she inherited from the previous regime to free up resources for original programming.

The 20th Century Fox TV-produced HIMYM, starring Josh Radnor, Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Segel, Alyson Hannigan and Cobie Smulders, was recently renewed for 2 more seasons, its seventh and eighth.

http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/