I wasn't comparing Solarized's blue text to the color of television, I was comparing its gray background to television. In my experience, static is white and black (mostly white), not gray, which is why I thought of a blank television screen rather than static.
I'm not talking about Solarized, I'm talking about the place that the quote in question was describing. "The port" was not a cheery blue sky type of place, it was gray with a restless energy, so the "color of a television tuned to a dead channel" is not a bright blue sky. That's the literary picture he is painting with those words. Good writers don't just state what something looks like, they paint a picture that gives you an overall sense and emotion of it. Investigate the writing tips from Chuck Palahniuk for more on this, or just read some Shakespeare.