Astral Communications has announced a $10-million fund to aid the financing, development and production of both French- and English-Canadian documentaries.

The revolving Astral Programming Fund will invest $10 million over a five-year initial period. Astral says initially the fund will be oriented to documentaries but may eventually be opened to other forms of programming.

The initial investments will generate some $50 million in production over the five years, says Astral, creating more than 20 hours of original programming.

Astral already runs the Harold Greenberg Fund that finances script development.