a dead black area 2"widefrom bottem to half way up right hand side?

on a plasma tv i'm thinking of buying (is a philips ambilight 50pf9967d 50" plasma) there is a black dead column from the base to halfway up about 6" from right of screen it looks about 2" wide and apparently was working fine before the owner moved house and then this fault appeared, i need to know if fixable and will it be costly or more likely something simple and cheap

phil
January 2010