Seattle Community Access Network (SCAN) was Seattle, Washington's public access cable television network, operating from 1999 to 2010 as the community-produced programming arm of Seattle's PEG cable system, providing Seattle residents with studio facilities, equipment, and training to create and broadcast original community programming.
SCAN received approximately 10 percent of Seattle's cable television franchise subfund - about $650,000 annually - to operate its public access television facilities, offering camera equipment, studio space, and production training to Seattle residents who wanted to produce programming for broadcast on the Seattle cable system alongside the government-focused Seattle Channel.
Seattle residents used SCAN to produce the wide range of community, cultural, and alternative programming that reflected the full diversity of one of the Pacific Northwest's most creative and politically engaged cities, providing a free-speech platform for neighborhood voices, immigrant communities, artists, and activists during more than a decade of operation.
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Seattle’s public access story began In 1983, Seattle’s public access channel operated as Channel 29 out of the Northwest Access and Production Center, a cable-company-supported facility where residents could take classes, use equipment, reserve studio time, and make programs for local cablecast. The building on North 98th Street became one of those access places that was more than a studio.
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