Discharge lamp drive apparatus and liquid crystal display apparatus

A discharge lamp drive apparatus includes: an inverter circuit; a transformer; a plurality of discharge lamp connection terminals; a plurality of ballast capacitors; a plurality of voltage detection circuits; and a signal processor. Each voltage detection circuit has first and second voltage detection elements constituting a series circuit. Each series circuit has a first end connected with a corresponding one of the discharge lamp connection terminals and a second end connected with a grounding terminal. The signal processor generates a signal indicating an open state of a discharge lamp by using an average value and a peak value of voltages appearing between connection points of the first and second voltage detection elements and the grounding terminals.