A new, independent reader survey conducted by Electrical Contractor magazine shows that 71 percent rank it most useful among its top five competitors--and 66 percent continue to prefer its print publication to its web version. Electrical Contractor also scored highest in readership and frequency, with 76 percent reported having read or looked through the past four print issues as compared with only 40 percent of Electrical Construction & Maintenance and seven percent or less of the others. Surveyed readers also prefer its competitors' print versions over their online versions.

"For us, print is far from dead," said Electrical Contractor Publisher John Maisel, whose website averages 1.4M page views per month with more than 15 minutes per site visit. He said they will debut a new website this summer offering a full menu of interactive elements.

Maisel said the print version continues as the portable mother ship with the website acting as a multimedia resource for story archives, product and technical information. "In the near future, we're more likely to add tablet and smart phone formats than a page turning digital version," he said.

Survey respondents reported using its website at www.ecmag.com mostly to do product research, learn more about marketing trends, find manufacturer or dealer contact information (55 percent), read a past issue/access the archives (46 percent) and to read the current issue (39 percent).

Additional key findings include:

 -- Electrical Contractor scored highest on past 12-month readership, past   4-month readership, readership of the past four issues, time spent per   month reading the magazine as well as being judged most useful. -- 66 percent of Electrical Contractor readers spend 30 minutes or   more/month reading the print magazine -- 21 percent spend more than an hour/month with Electrical Contractor -- 76 percent read or looked through the past four print issues of   Electrical Contractor compared to 40 percent of Electrical Construction   & Maintenance -- On average, 14 percent or less spent an hour or more reading than each   of the other magazines

Conducted by Renaissance Research & Consulting Inc., the study was conducted via the Internet in February 2012 with a total of 999 completed surveys. The print magazines and websites studied include Electrical Contractor, Electrical Construction & Maintenance, Security Products, CE Pro, Cabling Installation and Maintenance and Lighting Design and Application. The non-magazine websites included were TradeService.com, GlobalSpec.com and ElectricSmarts.com.

Electrical Contractor magazine's February 2012 issue introduced Integrated Systems Contractor at http://www.ecmag.com/?fa=slss&issueID=1357, a new supplement created to equip the 85+ percent of its readers now actively involved in low-voltage systems.

The detailed survey results are available upon request.

Published by the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), Electrical Contractor magazine reaches 85,300+ electrical contractors and more than 68,000 electrical contracting locations, more than any other industry publication.