The light emitting device is divided into a plurality of areas, and has, as main configuration elements, an area drive circuit (2), which generates LED data and LCD data, an LED controller (4), and a backlight unit (5), which is provided with a plurality of LEDs (52) corresponding to each of the areas. The power calculating unit of the LED controller (4) is mainly configured of a power calculating circuit (42), a power limiter circuit (43), and a limit value updating circuit (45), and the emission power to be supplied to each of the LEDs (52) is calculated for each are on the basis of image data. The power calculating unit performs the calculation such that the sum (Psum) of the emission power does not exceed a power limit value (Plimit) currently set, and updates the power limit value (Plimit) by following a previously set pattern.