ABC Color

What is ABC Color?

ABC Color is a daily newspaper published in Asunción by Editorial Azeta S.A. Its own history page gives the first issue as 8 August 1967 and reproduces the masthead motto of that period, “Un diario joven con fe en la patria”.^[1] A study of Paraguayan print journalism published by Ventana Abierta, the journalism review of the Universidad Católica, on 7 August 2025, names Aldo Zuccolillo as its founder and records that it introduced colour printing to the national press.^[3]

Reporters Without Borders, in its 2026 country entry for Paraguay, writes that “four large companies — Grupo Cartes, Grupo Vierci, Grupo Zucolillo and Grupo Albavisión — control the traditional press and own most of the newspapers, radio stations and TV channels”, and places Paraguay 88th of 180 countries with a score of 54.67.^[4] That is the monitor's own wording and its own attribution of the newspaper's group.

The paper's own timeline, published on 8 August 2026, describes the present operation as a multi-platform one, with the newspaper, the digital edition launched in 1996 and the AM 730 radio station ABC Cardinal; the Ventana Abierta study describes the same structure as digital editions, social platforms, AM and FM radio and television.^[2][3]

What does ABC Color cover?

The sports desk publishes across football, motorsport and the governance of sport. On 5 October 2023 it reported the Asociación Paraguaya de Fútbol's audiovisual rights contract with Tigo, giving the president Robert Harrison's figure of “USD 97.680.000” and the four-year term running to 2027.^[5]

It keeps its own running record of the Olimpia–Cerro Porteño fixture: on 3 May 2025 it published 327 league meetings, 113 to Olimpia, 112 to Cerro Porteño and 102 drawn, and an all-time figure of 456 meetings since 1913, crediting no source for the count.^[6]

It runs a standing motorsport section. On 19 October 2025 it published the history of the Transchaco Rally ahead of its fiftieth edition, dating the first running to 1971, naming the Touring y Automóvil Club Paraguayo as organiser and giving 103 entered crews, and on 28 December 2025 it reviewed the season in which the country held its first World Rally Championship round.^[7][8]

It also reports sport as public spending. On 12 May 2026 it reported that the Senate had approved requests for information addressed to the Secretaría Nacional de Deportes and to Senatur over money spent on the 2025 Junior Pan American Games, with a fifteen-day constitutional deadline to reply.^[9]

How large is ABC Color's audience?

No audited circulation or audience figure for the newspaper could be retrieved for this page, and the figures that exist are the paper's own.

Its history page states that the first issue in August 1967 was printed in 10,000 copies, that the print run reached 75,000 by the middle of the 1970s and that it later passed 100,000 copies a day.^[1] Its 2026 timeline states that the digital edition registers more than a million page views a day and more than 50% of online media share, and describes ABC Cardinal in superlative terms; those are the paper's own claims about itself and are reproduced here as such.^[2]

The Ventana Abierta study of August 2025, which is an academic source rather than a measurement body, publishes no circulation, audience or staff figures for the paper.^[3]

Since when has ABC Color existed?

The paper dates itself to 8 August 1967 and the Ventana Abierta study gives the same date.^[1][3]

Its own account records an interruption of exactly five years. It states that on 22 March 1984 the Ministry of the Interior ordered the paper suspended for an indefinite period, and that it returned to circulation on 22 March 1989 under the same editorial direction; the 2026 timeline repeats both dates and gives the ministry's stated ground as incitement to violence and a threat to public order.^[1][2] The Ventana Abierta study records the same closure in 1984 and reopening in 1989.^[3]

The digital edition dates from 1996 on both the paper's own timeline and the Ventana Abierta account.^[2][3]

Why does ABC Color matter in Paraguay's sport?

It is one of the outlets whose sports pages are used as a record. Its head-to-head count for the Olimpia–Cerro Porteño fixture differs from the figures the Asociación Paraguaya de Fútbol publishes for the same fixture, so the two sit side by side rather than one confirming the other.^[6]

Its motorsport coverage is the retrievable published record of the Transchaco Rally, a competition run in Paraguay since 1971 and organised by a national sporting authority rather than by a federation.^[7][8]

Its reporting of sport as public money is the reason several dated decisions are on the record at all: the Senate's information requests of 12 May 2026 to the state sport body and the tourism secretariat were reported with the deadline attached and without any finding having been made.^[9] Reporters Without Borders' 2026 entry for Paraguay, which places the paper's group among four it says control the traditional press, is the dated ownership anchor for reading that.^[4]