Why Does My Tv Screen Stay Black?

I recently purchased a Panasonic 26inch LCD TV second hand, my first second hand purchase, and I'm already a bit nervous.

I have plugged the TV into the wall and the aerial into the back of the TV. The red light in the bottom left hand corner turns on, and flickers when I press the Channel up and down button, indicating it is receiving the signal. However the screen remains black and has produced absolutely no picture.

I figure there are a few things that might have gone wrong:
1. I am being a complete muppet and have not properly connected aerial or something, or
2. There is something wrong with the TV.

Can anyone please advise whether this is a common problem and whether there is a quick fix. And if its not a quick fix, whether this is the type of irreparable problem that made the TV an unfortunately very bad purchase to begin with.

Thanks very much

Suggestion:

Either the Brilliance has been turned down to zero and left pre-set at that level, or the bulb has blown.

If it's because the Brilliance level has been turned to zero then you are in a quandary because you normally need to be able to see the screen to navigate the menus to turn it up. Have a look under the front panel and see if there's a manual brilliance control button.

All LCD televisions have a very bright white light source behind the screen. The LCD pixels act like filters to regulate the light passing through. That's how the picture is created. Without the backlight the LCD pixels will still be doing their stuff so you may be able to see some sort of activity if you look closely at the screen.
The television was probably offered for sale cheap because the previous owner knew about the problem. It is possible to replace the bulb at reasonable cost (even though the lamp itself is fairly dear). If you are technically competent you could possibly even do it yourself (but I wouldn't recommend it). Call Panasonic (www.panasonic.co.uk) for the location of your nearest authorised Panasonic repair centre.