A pirate television station is a broadcast television station that operates without a broadcast license. Like its counterpart pirate radio, the term pirate TV lacks a specific universal interpretation. It implies a form of broadcasting that is unwelcome by the licensing authorities within the territory where its signals are received, especially when the country of transmission is the same as the country of reception. When the area of transmission is not a country, or when it is a country and the transmissions are not illegal, those same broadcast signals may be deemed illegal in the country of reception. Therefore "pirate TV" can mean many things to many people. Pirate television stations may also be known as "bootleg TV", or confused with licensed low-power broadcasting (LPTV) or amateur television ATV services.

Pirate Television stations are not as abundant in the USA or UK as pirate radio stations are. Only since 2004 has the technology for pirate television stations become easier to obtain and construct, due to advances in technologies and the availability of equipment.

Jesmyn Ward is an American novelist. She won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction and a 2012 Alex Award with her second novel Salvage the Bones, a story about familial love and community covering the 10 days preceding Hurricane Katrina, the day of the cyclone, and the day after. An assistant professor of Creative Writing at the University of South Alabama, Ward is currently working on a memoir. She was the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi for the 2010–2011 academic year. From 2008 to 2010 Ward had a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University.

Jesmyn Ward grew up in DeLisle, a small rural community in Mississippi. She developed a love-hate relationship with her hometown after having been bullied at public school by black classmates and subsequently by white students while attending a private school paid for by her mother’s employer. Ward chose to become a writer to honor the memory of her younger brother, who was killed by a drunk driver the year she graduated from college.