Chicago-based Towers Productions is getting down to business with “Strange Inheritance,” an original primetime series to debut next week on Fox Business Network.
Hosted by Fox News anchor Jamie Colby, the show will focus on how real families deal with the priceless legacies and bizarre treasures they inherit. Stories range from efforts to keep a 900-acre bug museum in business to discovery of a rare 1913 Liberty Head nickel.
Premiering at 8 p.m. Monday, “Strange Inheritance” will air back-to-back half-hour episodes Mondays through Thursdays.
“We’re excited to bring viewers an entertaining and informative program that delves into the emotional and financially extraordinary situation of inheritance,” Bill Shine, senior executive vice president of Fox News Channel, said in a statement.
Jonathan Towers
Once known for its serious, hourlong documentary series on A&E and the History Channel (including “American Justice,” “Gangland,” “Wrath of God” and “Biography”), Towers Productions retrenched after the cable networks supplanted long-form nonfiction programming with character-driven reality series.
For executive producer Jonathan Towers, who assembled an all-Chicago crew of more than 20 producers, editors and videographers to deliver the first season’s 26 episodes, “Strange Inheritance” is a boon to the 25-year-old company that bears his name and to the local television production community.
“I’m genuinely excited about this show and its prospects as a long-term franchise,” Towers said in an interview. “It’s really a show about families and about generations — something that we can all relate to.”
About half the subjects came by way of auction houses that tipped producers to noteworthy estates. In each case, Towers said, the stories came first and the characters followed.
“The typical reality TV business is very focused on ‘casting’ people and looking for characters who pop on camera, but that was not the way we did it,” Towers said. “We went out and found these really interesting, sometimes bizarre, but always good family inheritance stories. And then, because the stories were so strong, the real-life characters just kind of came along.
"As a producer, I found it truly fascinating and, I think, a very positive thing.”