The program features news, traffic, weather, and entertainment segments (including celebrity interviews, which are mainly done in studio, but occasionally via satellite).

At its inception, it was a two-hour newscast utilizing the then-traditional "overnight headlines and traffic/weather" morning news format, originally anchored by Antonio Mora and Susan Lichtman.

At the same time of Reynolds' departure, frequent guest host Maria Sansone was made a full-time co-host of the program, alongside Edwards.

The two were later joined by Araksya Karapetyan as a third host/anchor with regular contributions from Lisa Breckenridge, Marla Tellez, and Tony McEwing.

For a short period, the broadcast was hosted by Edwards and Karapetyan before the latter was moved to the station's early morning newscast.

On December 4, 2017, Megan Colarossi joined the show, replacing Habib as the new co-anchor alongside Edwards, who returned as a sports anchor.

[citation needed] In 2001, Good Day L.A. spun off a nationally syndicated program called Good Day Live, an hour-long version of the local show with the same hosts; the program, which featured the same format as Good Day L.A. (although with more of an emphasis on entertainment news, interviews, and feature stories rather than news headlines), was distributed by 20th Television and was originally launched on the Fox Television Stations, the parent of KTTV which operates Fox's owned-and-operated stations.

Also in 2005, Good Day L.A. added a Sunday edition that was hosted by Robb Weller, Nischelle Turner and Elizabeth Espinosa (in July 2006, the Good Day L.A. branding was removed from the Sunday edition and the format was changed to a more straightforward newscast; Turner and Espinosa were reassigned to other news programs, but Weller remained and co-anchored the Sunday morning newscast with Gina Silva until that program was cancelled by the end of the decade).

KTTV expanded Good Day L.A. to five and a half hours on December 10, 2018, incorporating the early morning newscast that began at 4:30 a.m. into the show.

Koricke left television news in June 1996 and was replaced on the broadcast by Jean Martirez (who joined the station from KCNC-TV in Denver).