According to one embodiment, a display apparatus including a receiving unit, two signal processing units and, a luminance-curve converter, a display device, a histogram-extracting unit, and a characteristic-control-data output unit. The unit sets a characteristic to the luminance-curve converter in accordance with histogram distribution data. The display apparatus further comprises a first control-signal generating unit, a second control-signal generating unit and a selector. The unit generates a first control signal that reduces amount of light emitted from the backlight to a value corresponding to the value obtained by integrating the data for emphasizing the low-region, in the luminance-curve converter. The unit determines darkness of the image from the histogram distribution data and generates a second control signal that reduces amount of light in accordance with the darkness of the image. The selector outputs one of the control signals output from two control-signal generating units, which reduces amount of light.
