You’ll still get a black screen if you flip to KITV using a cable box. But Hawaii residents will be able to watch the Wednesday night KITV-Civil Beat mayoral debate, thanks to an unusual agreement between rivals — Hawaii’s major news stations.

In what KITV calls an “unprecedented” move, KGMB, KHNL, KFVE and Clear Channel radio stations will all simulcast the mayoral debate starting at 7 p.m. PBS Hawaii will re-broadcast the debate at 9 p.m.

Executives with Hawaii News Now, which operates the three TV stations, didn’t return a call for this story.

KITV has been “blacked out” for Oceanic Time Warner Cable subscribers since Monday because of a contract dispute between Time Warner Cable and Hearst Corp., which owns KITV.

The service disruption was particularly bad timing for KITV and Civil Beat. The three-way race for mayor is a hot one with leading candidate, former Gov. Ben Cayetano, promising to kill the $5.2 billion Honolulu rail project. His rivals, incumbent Mayor Peter Carlisle and former city managing director Kirk Caldwell are both pro-rail.

“The fact that they would be off cable at any time is unusual. The fact that they’d be off cable when they’ve gone through the trouble of organizing an important even like a debate seems like bad timing,” 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. “There’s very little that’s completely unprecedented in the world, but this is indeed an unusual set of circumstances.”

Hearst came up with the idea to ask the other Hawaii broadcasters to pick up the debate, according to KITV general manager, Andrew Jackson.

Early Wednesday morning, Hearst officials called Raycom, which owns the Hawaii News Now stations.

Jackson followed up with a call to his local counterpart at Hawaii News Now. He also put out feelers to PBS and the head of Clear Channel Communications.

“We all enthusiastically agreed that this was a great opportunity for us to work together as broadcasters and demonstrate the public interest value that broadcasters have,” Jackson said. “Honestly, I think we’re all having fun working together on this.”

Still, for some, swooping in to save the debate adds up to more than just a public service.

“I’m not quite sure how much is cooperation and how much the other guys are just trying to make themselves look good as heroes,” Mutter said.

“The other stations, they can both do the right thing and make sure most people get to see it, and they can also get a little positive PR for doing what they’re doing,” he said. “For them, it’s a big win.”

Hearst and Time Warner Cable have been unable to agree on so-called carriage fees, or the rate that cable companies pay to retransmit broadcast stations’ signals. As a result, Hearst, which owns local ABC-affiliate KITV, blocked transmission of its signals to Time Warner Cable. Other affected cities include Boston, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Pittsburg.

The other stations will carry the KITV-Civil Beat debate in full, but KITV will still keep the advertising revenues from any commercials played during the breaks, Jackson said.

“This was a non-commercial proposition on behalf of the Raycom Group and PBS,” Jackson said. “They’re simply doing this to assist our getting the message out.”

Civil Beat is co-hosting the debate with KITV, which will be taped at KITV’s studios.