Good Day L.A.

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Good Day L.A. is a television talk show aired on KTTV (Fox 11), the Fox Broadcasting Company-owned and operated station in Los Angeles, California. The show airs Monday through Friday mornings from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM and is simulcast live on myfoxla.com. The show is hosted by Jillian Reynolds, Steve Edwards and Dorothy Lucey.

[edit] History

Good Day L.A. began in the fall of 1993 as a competitor to the KTLA Morning News, which began two years before. At its inception, the show carried a similar format to KTLA's production. It was a two-hour program and was anchored by Antonio Mora and Susan Lichtman. Mark Thompson moved from the station's 10pm newscast to report weather; Dagny Hultgreen was the entertainment anchor; and Suzanne Dunn was the traffic reporter on Sky 11 (now SkyFox), the station's helicopter.

The format was unsuccessful, and the show underwent frequent anchor turnover. Mora left for ABC and was replaced by Thompson and later Tony McEwing (who has anchored the earlier FOX11 Morning News since its 1993 launch). Hultgreen was replaced by Lonnie Lardner; Dunn was replaced by Will Kohlschreiber.

The show was finally retooled in March, 1995 when Steve Edwards was brought in as the anchor with Jillian Barberie (nee Warry) reporting weather (swapping positions with Thompson, who took over her former post reporting weather on the station's 10pm newscast), and Dorothy Lucey handling the entertainment reports; Rod Bernsen took over the traffic reports from the helicopter, and McEwing reported headlines from the newsroom. The show has since become a mainstay in Los Angeles television, and many times has beaten KTLA and even the network shows in the time slot. The current (2008) host line-up is Edwards, Lucey, Barberie, McEwing (who also serves as primary substitute host for Edwards), and Rick Dickert (traffic).

In 2002, Good Day L.A. was spun off into a nationally syndicated program as Good Day Live, an hour long version of the local show with the same presenters. Jillian Barberie was fired from and Dorothy Lucey left the syndicated version in 2004, yet continued to host the L.A. based version. They were replaced by Arthel Neville and Debbie Matenopoulos. Good Day Live was cancelled a year later.

Following the cancellation of Good Day Live, KTTV expanded Good Day L.A. to three hours. Also in 2005, Good Day L.A. added a Sunday edition of the show hosted by Robb Weller, Nischelle Turner, and Elizabeth Espinosa. (In July 2006, the GDLA branding was removed from the Sunday edition and the format was changed to a more straightforward newscast. Turner and Espinosa were re-assigned to other shows, but Weller stayed on and now co-anchors the Sunday morning show with Gina Silva.)

KTTV and KTLA are competitors for both their morning and evening newscasts (5am-10am) and nights (10p-11p)

As far as the Fox 11 Morning News, the stations early morning newscasts, the program premiered along with Good Day L.A. in Fall of 1993, and was originally anchored by Diana Koricke and Tony McEwing, with veteran KTTV reporter and past anchor Tony Valdez serving as an occasional fill-in anchor. Koricke was replaced by Jean Martirez in 1995, who has since remained with the station. The show originally began as a 30 minute newscast at 6:30, but was expanded to one hour by 1994. By 1999, the program was expanded to 90-minutes, with the 5:30 a.m. newscast under the "Fox 11 A.M. Express" branding; a name which only lasted several weeks. In 2004, an additional half-hour was added expanding the morning news to two hours beginning at 5 a.m.