MUMBAI: Dil Na Jaane Kyun, the first leaf out of Zee’s innovative Chausath Panne, which is poised to reach an unexpected climax in a couple of weeks, has climbed to number two in the channel’s top shows.

According to Zee officials and Dil Na.. production house FilmFarm, the show ranks a close second to Astitva – Ek Prem Kahani, the Niki Aneja- Varun Badola starrer. Both shows have consciously kept away from the typical saas-bahu oriented family drama and explore untouched themes. While Astitva probes the relationship between a doctor and a husband who is younger than her, Dil Na dwells on the touching relationship between mother -in-law and daughter-in-law after the son dies.

Sanjay Upadhyaya, who has earlier directed Saaya for Sony, will take over the next edition of Chausath Panne when Dil Na finishes its course. At a party to mark the success of Dil Na, producer Pintoo Guha, who had an eight year stint with UTV before branching out on his own, said the show was initially conceived as a weekly but later adapted to suit the Chausath Panne slot. Zee’s internal research had shown that viewers were now looking for serials with a finite number of episodes, he said.

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Zee has now contracted Guha to do some more shows for the channel and Guha believes that although channels may be constrained to slash budgets after the implementation of conditional access, good content will rule programming in the coming months and consequently, channels would be loath to cutting costs at random.