The newspaper was launched in 1951 as "Voz Caribe", a weekly newspaper. It was relaunched as a daily, under the new name "El Tiempo", following the restoration of democracy after the 1958 Venezuelan coup d'état. Under the management of Jesús Márquez (1978 - 1985) the newspaper increased its circulation from 6300 to 35,000, and its size from 16 pages to 40.