BACKLIGHT

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a backlight capable of making the contrast of a display favorable by controlling the lighting of LEDs and of reducing the electric power consumption by favorably adjusting the voltage applied to the LEDs, based on the lighting control data from an image signal.SOLUTION: The backlight 10 includes a light source module 20 on which a plurality of minimum lighting light-emitting element blocks 22 containing light-emitting elements 23 are mounted, a plurality of light-emitting regions sectioned by a predetermined number of the minimum lighting light-emitting element blocks 22 connected in parallel, and light-emitting element drive control means 34, 35 for drive-controlling the minimum lighting light-emitting element blocks 22 based on the image signal input from outside for each of the light-emitting regions, wherein the lowest voltage is variably controlled by which all the minimum lighting light-emitting element blocks 22, which are lighted in the same light emitting region, can be lighted by comparing an internal reference voltage Vref and the cathode voltage Vc for each of the minimum lighting light-emitting element blocks 22.