Traditional print titles are experiencing a tumultuous time, ravaged as they are by the rise of the internet and free editions, and the magazine market is no exception.
The August ABC results were viewed in some quarters as a triumph of seriousness over tat. Celebrity and lads' mags recorded big falls, while the upmarket Conde Nast publications and current affairs titles Private Eye and The Week fared better.
However, as usual, the truth is somewhat greyer. The upmarket titles are doing well but, with the exception of Glamour, they still have relatively small circulations compared to the TV Choice, Take a Break and OK!s of this world. Where circulations have fallen off a cliff is in the young men's sector and, to a lesser extent, the teen market.
Justin Barns, media director at Carat, says: "Magazines are still a very important part of the media mix. Monthly lifestyle titles are in good shape, both for women and for men aged 30-plus, and the special interest sector will remain strong because of its loyal readership.
"However, the young men's market is going through some interesting changes and the signs are that the tide might be starting to turn for the women's weeklies."
Dave Foster, press manager at Carat, sums up what his clients look for. "The Holy Grail for a media buyer is a magazine with responsive readers that knows its audience and provides advertisers with the best possible environment for promoting their message."
So who is reading which magazines, what kind of lives do they lead and which brands do they relate to?
Taking into account the fact that some media buyers prefer to segregate magazine readers by mindsets such as "gossip hungry" rather than by demographics, Media Week has incorporated lifestyle preferences and attitudes in its breakdown of the consumer magazine market into the seven ages of magazine readers.
PRE-TEENS - Up to 12 years
Kate has just celebrated her fourth birthday by having a Shrek party. Her day consists of hanging out with Mum, going to dance class, colouring in and watching television.
Her favourite programme is BBC's In the Night Garden and while she can't yet read, she still pesters Mum to buy magazines.
Kate is already aware of brands and can recognise her favourite TV characters on the news-stand during the weekly shop at Tesco, where she pleads with Mum to buy In the Night Garden and CBeebies Weekly.
Big sister Helen, nine, has just received her first mobile phone and spends her time texting and using the internet, although the latter is strictly rationed by Mum and Dad.
Her life is based around the family and her pet rabbit Troy, named after the hero of her favourite programme High School Musical. She reads Girl Talk and Disney High School Musical magazines, published by BBC Magazines and Panini respectively.
Younger brother Robert, seven, hasn't got a mobile yet. He loves computer games and Doctor Who, and used his own money to buy the first heavily discounted issue of the fortnightly Doctor Who Battles in Time. He then persuades Mum to give him a subscription.
These pre-teens are "still fairly innocent", according to Toni Round, managing director of youth and children's magazines at the BBC. Life is about family, pets and children's TV characters, rather than Britney Spears or Big Brother.
Round believes the children's magazine market is strong, albeit with a fast turnover of magazines launching and closing. She says: "This market is relatively resilient from the internet and has not been decimated by new technology, such as the teen market has."
Television tie-ins are king for this age group, with general interest magazines hard to sustain, particularly for boys.
YOUTH - 9-18 years
Thirteen-year-old Clare wants to be on a talent show. She loves watching and voting on The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent and Big Brother and is addicted to EastEnders. She listens to Radio 1's Chris Moyles and Scott Mills.
Clare downloads music onto her mobile phone, with the Jonas Brothers, Rihanna and Leona Lewis her favourite artistes. She is an avid reader of Top of the Pops and Sugar magazines and borrows her big sister's copy of Heat.
She recently voted in Heat's poll on who should go on its cover, ensuring that the Jonas Brothers won - and likes the pop and celebrity posters that these magazines offer. As Duncan Gray, publisher of BBC Worldwide's teenage magazines, says: "These girls are obsessed by celebrity and pop, so everything we do is about those two things."
Clare looks out for specific brands - Miss Sixty, Top Shop and Pineapple.
She is growing up fast and increasingly defines herself through instant messaging and websites such as MySpace.
Clare's twin brother Dave is one of the 200,000 readers, mainly boys, who buy Match or Match of the Day each week. Dave's room is festooned with posters of Cristiano Ronaldo, Fernando Torres and Cesc Fabregas. His biggest worry is that someone in the playground at school will trip him up with a scoreline or piece of transfer news that he hasn't heard.
Away from football, Dave loves computer games and video clips on YouTube. His big brother Trev, 17, used to buy NME, but now reads it online and picks up free newspapers on the way to college.
Like a growing number of teenagers, Trev feels it's "out of order" to have to pay for editorial.
Jane Wolfson, head of press at Initiative, confirms: "The teen magazine market is in decline because this age group is able to source content easily online."
THE LADS - 15-25 years
Wes is 18, works as a lifeguard at his local leisure centre, and buys a weekly men's magazine. Shadow education secretary Michael Gove recently complained that Nuts and Zoo "paint a picture of women as permanently, lasciviously, uncomplicatedly available", to which Wes would grin and say: "What's wrong with that?"
But even Wes has his doubts - can he not get his fix of girl-next-door totty and horrific exploding thumb injuries somewhere else for free? He already picks up Metro every morning at the train station and uses websites such as FHM.com and Nuts.co.uk to check out girls and equip himself with pub ammo.
Amanda Wigginton, director of insight at IPC, says: "IPC's Today's Man research shows that this age group expects to be constantly entertained. Women and humour are still the most important things when it comes to his magazines."
How Wes appears to his peers is crucial, according to Wigginton. She says: "Friends are more important than family and he wants to be described by them as cool, funny and sociable." She sums up his generation as "very pro-advertising - brands define them".
But Wes and his friends might be going off the idea of a general weekly men's magazine. Increasingly, they are migrating to more in-depth specialist magazines such as Future's Fast Car, Xbox 360, technology title T3 and Media Week owner Haymarket's Stuff.
Television is a huge part of Wes's life. He loves Top Gear and looks up to Jeremy Clarkson as a cool father figure. But it is Richard Hammond who he identifies most closely with - he's eager, fearless and, given half a chance, would wrap the latest supercar around a lamppost.
UPMARKET WOMEN - 25-44 years
Sophie is in her mid-30s. She has two children, is married to a businessman and works in a job share as a lawyer. Her newspaper taste fluctuates between the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph, and she tunes into BBC Radio 4 and Radio 2 while driving her BMW estate.
Sophie's favourite magazines are Glamour, Red and Easy Living. Fashion and beauty are central to who she is, and Marie Claire front pages such as "Speedy steps to sexy hair" will persuade her to shell out at the news-stand on a whim.
She is a busy woman with a career and a family to juggle, who wants to go on fantastic holidays, eat delicious food and, above all, keep her family healthy and safe.
Chris Hughes, publisher of Easy Living, says women such as Sophie grew up with Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire, but now want something more mature but still stylish. "They are the glue in society: the women who make things happen, whether it's at the church group or the tennis club," he says.
Sophie's combined family income is three times the national average, so she is cash-rich but time poor. Citing the fact that if you put the word "coat" into Google you get more than 88 million results, Hughes adds: "We live in a world of information overload, so we are about edited choice."
Sophie isn't interested in celebrity but she wants to learn more about well-known, feisty women. "If someone's got their tits out on Big Brother, our readers aren't interested," says Hughes. "But if the story is about Heidi Klum, Mariella Frostrup or Emma Thompson, that's a different matter."
Sophie is also interested in green issues and how to be a green consumer. She watches Strictly Come Dancing, Dragons' Den and The Apprentice and will use the internet to book tickets, order clothes and consult sites such as Mumsnet.com.
FAMILY GUY - 25-44 years
Rob is 30, married with no children, and works as a marketing executive. On the way to work he picks up a copy of ShortList, the free weekly founded by former FHM editor Mike Soutar.
He reads The Sunday Times at weekends, but only buys men's magazines once or twice a year. He watches sport, comedy and documentaries, and his favourite TV channel is Dave. He needs a short, sharp daily fix of Sky Sports News to keep up with the latest football gossip, while the BBC's Radio 5 Live dominates his radio listening.
Rob is not into social networking, preferring to use the internet for gambling and sports news. He drives a Renault or a Ford, but aspires to get an Audi TT and, eventually, a Porsche.
Soutar argues his title is more representative of 25 to 40-year-old men than its paid-for rivals. Not only is its circulation of 481,000 three times that of GQ, but Soutar cites research showing that ShortList's readers have a higher average income (£29,000 as opposed to £24,000).
Carat's Dave Foster agrees that ShortList and fellow free title Sport have found a huge gap in the men's market, arguing that their weekly frequency allows advertisers to be more relevant and responsive to the market.
However, quality monthlies still have some advantages, tending to be read for longer periods and with higher levels of engagement. "GQ and other leading monthlies have the advantage of being respected, established brands with high production values," Foster says. "Glossy upmarket environments provide stature and are highly valued by clients to showcase their brands."
Soutar says today's man is different to his predecessor of a decade ago. "When I was at FHM, we did fashion and grooming to keep the advertisers happy," he admits. "Now the reader is demanding it. We're dealing with a far more image-conscious, vain reader than ever before."
Which might explain the success of Men's Health, whose recent cover stories included "Rock-hard abs" and "Six-pack on a plate".
MASS-MARKET MUMS - 25-44 years
Shirley, 42, works in a bookies, has three children and recently moved in with her new partner. She is not interested in celebrities, preferring to concentrate on real-life stories concerning women like her.
Her favourite reads are H Bauer's Take a Break, which sells almost a million copies a week, and its stablemate TV Choice, the nation's biggest-selling magazine.
"This group is not aspirational in any way," says Andy Brooks, publishing director of Take a Break and sister title That's Life. "These are working class women with money, relationship or children worries."
The covers are built around stories of family upheaval, such as "I'm Dying and Having Twins". The stories are always written in the first-person to create a sense of empathy - the subtext is: "This could have been you".
Shirley's interests are spending time with her children and grandchildren, holidays and bingo - Take a Break has its own online bingo lounge. Two years ago, just over half its readers had access to the internet, but Brooks estimates the figure is now 70%.
This group will often use diet networking sites, such as WeightWatchers, and the majority of ads are for groceries and cleaning products. The Central Office of Information (COI) uses Take a Break for advertorials about how to quit smoking or claim a new kind of state benefit.
Meanwhile, Shirley's daughter Nikki, 23, prefers to read celebrity magazines such as Heat. She is fascinated by the latest scandal in the Big Brother house and will buy anything with news of Jade Goody's battle against cancer.
"It's fair to describe this sector as real life versus celebrity," Initiative's Jane Wolfson says of the popular women's magazine market. "The celebrity-focused market has a younger audience (the majority of readers are aged between 18 to 34), but many weeklies such as Closer do try to bring the two formats together."
NEW NAVIGATORS - 45+ years
Judy, 48, has two grown-up children and was recently divorced. She works as a health service manager but is planning to go on an around-the-world trip with a friend in two years' time.
Linda Swidenbank, publishing director of IPC's Woman & Home, who describes her readers as "new navigators", says: "This generation is not old or grey - that is 70-plus these days. They're optimistic and forward thinking - there's no route map for this generation of women, as there has never been a group like this before."
Judy is still interested in fashion and loves Kylie and Madonna. "Sex and the City is hugely powerful at summing this generation up," adds Swidenbank. "They're not all defined by their kids. These women will have gone to see the Sex and the City movie en masse with their girlfriends."
Judy's ex-husband Stuart has remarried. Today he loves reading, golf, yachting and hi-fi magazines. He is one of the "mid-life crisis men", according to a tongue-in-cheek Malcolm Stoodley, advertising sales director at Future Publishing. Stoodley cites Future's Classic Rock as the in-house bible of this generation, but the preferred magazine could equally be competitors Mojo or The Word.
As a poster on The Word website puts it: "You read Mojo. You turn 40. Radiohead are on the cover every bloody week. You stop reading Mojo. You read The Word. You turn 50. Lemmy appears on the cover. You read National Geographic."
The Radio Times is a big player for both men and women of this age group. Half the title's readership are what Kathy Day, publishing director, calls "discerners" - people who don't watch a lot of television, but plan their viewing carefully to take in high-end programmes such as Cranford, Life on Mars and David Attenborough documentaries.
The new navigators eat out regularly, go on frequent trips abroad, and relate to mid-market, high-quality brands such as John Lewis, Waitrose, Audi and Bose.
Media Week's age ranges for each group of readers are intended as a guide only, due to the natural cross-over of life stages.