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To what extent does テレビ refer to the physical TV as opposed to the medium television? In other words, is it correct to say テレビを買う rather than テレビ台を買う?

Googling, I find equally many occurrences of both phrases, but significantly more using "台" if I replace テレビ with ラジオ.

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テレビ台 stands for a "television stand" like this one.

テレビ stands both for a "television" as a medium (e.g. テレビの力, テレビ朝日) and a "television set" (e.g. 液晶テレビ).

テレビ also stands for what in some English words wood be the prefix "tele-" or "video-", like テレビ会議 for a "videoconference".

台 is a counter for devices, so テレビ1台 means "one television set" and Google results could be affected by content containing such strings close to each other.


Additional information:

There is an older and more technical term テレビ受像機 for a television set.

テレビジョン is a synonym for テレビ and describes medium, technology, and devices used for video transmission.

And "TV" as a broadcasting company is usually called テレビジョン放送局.

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