Quote Originally Posted by Spiderkat
There's nothing to be sorry about.
So when you hear "il n'y a pas de télévision", it means either there's no TV set or noboby owns one. And "il n'y a pas la télévision", it means there's no TV broadcast either because you don't have the piece of equipment needed to get it or there are no facilities to broadcast.
Thanks! Just as I thought. If you're interested here's how would I say the same idea in Russian.

"il n'y a pas de télévision" означает "(там, ни у кого) нет телевизоров" или "(там, ни у кого) нет телевизора".

А "il n'y a pas la télévision" означает что нет телепередач, то ли потому, что нет (the piece of equipment needed to get it)="оборудования, необходимого для приёма", - а это разве не телевизор? то ли потому, что никого нет в эфире.


BTW, Lingvo is a bit unclear on the point, but you should use "эфир" in this sense only when talking about radio, when talking about other matters, it's "воздух" or "воздушное пространство". It could be also used in literature as a metaphor. Back in 90's advertisment slogan of Lingvo was "... Он подобен прозрачному эфиру," meaning that Lingvo was always available to the user. It wasn`t an online service then, it was a TSR DOS program... Or in one of the short stories by Yilf&Petrov: "Так вдруг стало панихидно, что самый воздух, так сказать, эфир и зефир, не лезет в рот гуляющим единицам".