The KITV “blackout” could pose more than just a hiccup for Wednesday night’s mayoral debate. It also constricts Hawaii’s already limited broadcast news market.

Media experts said such disruptions are uncommon.

“Every now and then negotiations get nasty, and that’s what’s happening today,” said Alan Mutter, a lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and former Chief Operating Officer of a national cable-TV company InterMedia Partners. “This [kind of dispute] happens at every TV station with every cable company. But usually it’s resolved. ‘Blackouts’ are rare but not unprecedented.”

KITV News is one of just three local broadcast news programs in Hawaii. Sixty percent of Hawaii households watch KITV via Oceanic Time Warner Cable, according to Oceanic.

“The problem is pretty visible,” said Neal Milner, a political analyst and Political Science professor at the University of Hawaii. “It’s TV — there isn’t another medium that reaches people more. What it shows is how taken for granted the medium is and the significant consequences of this kind of thing. There are already short-term political consequences. People can’t turn to alternative media. It shows the power of large cable companies.”

KITV’s “blackout” on Oceanic will further pare down the diversity of Hawaii’s broadcast news coverage, according to Milner. “But the settlement will be pretty quick,” he predicted.

Mutter, like Milner, is confident that the dispute will be resolved soon.

“I would say days not weeks. It could be hours not days…It’s a matter of two people who are now nose-to-nose. It has to do with the personalities involved and economic stakes involved.”

KITV has been unavailable on Oceanic since midnight on Monday.

Hearst Television, which owns the ABC-affiliated KITV broadcast station, blocked the transmission of its signals to Time Warner Cable after the two companies failed to arrive at an agreement over so-called carriage fees, or the rate that cable companies pay to retransmit broadcast stations’ signals. Other cities affected by the signal blockage include Boston, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.

Both KITV and Time Warner released statements blaming each other for the dispute.

The cable company lambasted Hearst for demanding an “outrageous” 300 percent increase, calling the disruption wrong and unfair.

KITV, on behalf of Hearst, called the fee “reasonable” compared to what Time Warner “pays for other significantly less popular channels.”

“Time Warner’s characterization of the percentage increase in carriage fees we are seeking is inaccurate,” the statement reads. “The fees we are asking from Time Warner are based on the fees we are being paid by other cable companies under our recent deals, which is the real measure—not Time Warner’s exaggerated and distorted claims—of the fairness of our proposal.”

KITV’s President and General Manager Andrew Jackson said that Time Warner terminated negotiations after the two companies reached an impasse Monday evening. He emphasized that Hearst has successfully concluded more than 150 carriage agreements with other cable companies without disruption of service to their subscribers.

The original agreement expired June 30, but KITV chose to extend its signals through last night so that viewers could still access the station on July 4, Jackson said.

Both Jackson and Time Warner said that this is the first time that the two companies have arrived at a dispute of this magnitude.

KITV’s programming is still available on the Internet, by satellite from DIRECTV or DISH and, where available, on other cable operators such as Hawaiian Telcom, according to the station’s statement.