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A native speaker wrote the sentence 「安いので日本で有名だとテレビで言っていました。」, with the meaning intended to be "I saw on TV that it's popular in Japan because it's cheap."

My question is about the phrase 「テレビで言っていました」. I originally asked if the Japanese person said 「テレビで見ました」, "I saw on TV", but I was told that no, it was 「テレビで言っていました」.

Grammatically I'm struggling with how 「テレビで言っていました」 means "I saw on that TV that ..." or "the TV said ...". Who is the subject in that sentence? I would think the phrase would be structured as 「テレビが言っていました」, 「テレビで聞いた」, 「テレビで見ました」, or similar.

Is 「テレビで言っていました」 correct wording, and why?

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  • Maybe a news anchor is a subject for 言っていました?
    – Jimmy Yang
    Commented Jan 31, 2023 at 3:25
  • Even in English I feel like 'The TV says' sounds like a talking TV and it would be more natural to say 'It/they said on TV...'
    – Angelos
    Commented Jan 31, 2023 at 15:09

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テレビで言っていました is perfectly correct, and it means 誰かがテレビで言っていました "Someone said on TV that ～". The subject has been omitted simply because who said it was not important.

テレビが言っていました is also correct, but is less common (here's why).

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