KCET, the most prominent of PBS’s Southern California affiliates, on Friday said that due to budget concerns it plans to leave the network and become a non-profit independent station.

Starting in January, the Los Angeles station will replace Public Broadcasting Service programs, such as “NewsHour,” and “Sesame Street,” with news, feature films and documentaries from local sources and other broadcasters.

“This is the creative capital of the world and we’re very excited about the prospects of being able to better tell the story of our community,” Chief Executive Al Jerome told the Business Journal. “We think that long term this is a better place to be strategically.”

The continued high cost of PBS membership triggered the move, Jerome said. PBS annual dues are based in large part on a station’s non-federal revenue, and KCET saw large spikes earlier in the decade due to corporate grants for its locally produced childrens’ show “A Place of Our Own.”

PBS froze dues for member stations in December 2009, in the midst of the economic downturn, Jerome said, and was unwilling to compromise even though his station’s higher revenue was the result of a restricted grant that could not be used for PBS programming. PBS also was not interested in allowing KCET to change from a “full-service” to “limited-service” station with lower dues, he said.

The station’s PBS dues in the last fiscal year totaled nearly $7 million, nearly one-fifth of the station’s $37-million net operating revenue. Complicating matters is the fact that KCET competes for viewers and fund-raising with Orange County’s KOCE-TV and two other limited-service PBS stations in the region. The station was pursuing a consortium with those stations to pool resources, but no agreement had been reached.

“We’ve been talks with PBS for three years, and intensive negotiations for the last 11 months, about the fact that these dues levels are not sustainable in this kind of economy,” Jerome said.

PBS late Friday said it was supportive of the idea of a Southern California consortium of stations, and would hold discussions with KOCE-TV, KVCR-TV, and KLCS-TV.

“At issue were KCET’s repeated requests that it be allowed to operate as a PBS member station without abiding by PBS policies and paying the corresponding dues,” PBS said in a statement. “The board and senior management of PBS remain focused on ensuring the people of Los Angeles continue to benefit from the full range of high-quality PBS content and services.”