Lifetime has outbid TBS, ABC Family, FX and Comedy Central for exclusive cable TV rights to the reruns of Twentieth TV's How I Met Your Mother.

According to Variety, the parties declined to discuss financial terms, but Lifetime forked over a strapping $82.5 million (or about $750,000 an episode multiplied by 110 half hours).

That's the second biggest license fee ever ponied up by a cable network for a sitcom in the first cycle, beaten only by the $800,000 an episode shelled out by FX for Warner Bros. Domestic's Two and a Half Men.

The 12 weekly runs of "Mother" won't start until the fall of 2010, but Lifetime will be able to repurpose two plays a week of the series for about 20 months, starting early next year.