And at least two more recent books followed that up with "It was bright blue", as that's what many modern digital TVs show rather than the grey analog static Gibson was referring to. I love Gibson's line, but it's the sort of thing that will need to be explained by a footnote the way Dickens' description of a ghost in "A Christmas Carol" as glowing "like a bad lobster in a dark cellar" is today.

That's one reason I like it! Fits right in with the Gibsonesque view of technology.

One of the books you're probably thinking of is Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere:

"The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television screen, tuned to a dead channel."

I believe Gibson actually did mean that bright blue. If memory serves his TV at the time didn't do grey analog static, and he generalized somewhat hastily.

Being from the same vintage as Gibson, I can assure you, tvs in those days gave us grey static.

Came to the comments to find this line. You didn't disappoint,