It was announced today that How I Met Your Mother will return for a 9th, and possible finale, season. This news comes after a long day of contract negotiations.

Jason Segel, who was planning to leave the popular CBS sitcom after this year's Season 8 run of episodes, signed an 11th hour deal to return. The series' ratings have continued to improve over the course of the first half of this new season, despite losing its lead-in Two and a Half Men, which moved to Thursday nights.

A decision had to be made for the fate of the series today, because of the long standing mythology behind the show. Series creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays requested they know the fate of their series by the end of December, so that if the show wasn't to return in the fall of 2013, they could start to plan the finale episodes and finally reveal who the mother is.

The series would have been dead if Jason Segel had not agreed to return. It is believed that he is staying on as a show of camaraderie to the cast and crew, whom he remains very close with.