As a stellar list of celebrities including Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger gathered at Empire magazine's recent film awards in Park Lane, London, across town a tough decision had been made to close the once-mighty weekly lads' magazine Nuts.

The contrasting fortunes of the two titles – Empire this year celebrating its 25th anniversary, Nuts closing after a decade – was a timely reminder of how the rise of the digital consumer has had a widely different impact on titles in the UK magazine market.

The rationale for Nuts' closure was succinctly described by Eleanor Mills, editorial director at the Sunday Times, as due to the "tsunami of internet porn" that men can access for free "with two clicks" instead of buying a lads' magazine.

With information on the film industry also available online, Empire might arguably be facing the same fate, yet it sells 145,000 copies a month, more than the title did through most of the pre-internet 1990s. This is an admirable figure given that the overall consumer magazine market is in significant decline.

Between 2007 and 2012 total circulation declined 30%, from 1.68m copies to 1.17m copies per annum, with advertising falling a third to £537m a year.

Mark Dinning, Empire's editor-in-chief, says the title has embraced the digital age – X-Men stars including Hugh Jackman and Jennifer Lawrence created a "social media storm" after a stunt tweeting the 25 covers of its special February edition – with the print edition receiving increased investment.

"We have revelled in digital," he says. "Upped word counts, kept paginations, introduced more lavish photography than ever before. There is blood on every page. We have also benefited hugely from the industry we report on, breaking world exclusives. I categorically believe it is the place for it in the monthly magazine."

"The genres that are the most in decline are men's and, more recently, those relying on celebrity content – magazines of the ilk of OK!, Heat and even high-end Hello! – thanks to the rise of Mail Online, TMZ and even sites such as Hearst's Digital Spy," says Douglas McCabe, media analyst at Enders.

The past decade has been brutal to weeklies such as Heat, with sales more than halved from 566,000 to 241,000 between 2003 and 2013; the fall of Richard Desmond's OK! was almost as dramatic, from 571,000 to 301,000 over the same period; and the once-unassailable Grazia, the UK's first weekly glossy, has dropped from its peak of 230,000 in 2009 to its current 160,000.

Tellingly, Bauer eschewed using the Grazia brand with its latest attempt to connect with twentysomething women, digital-only brand The Debrief, a signal that a different approach may be needed to reach a new generation of digital media-savvy consumers.

"The decline in classic female categories – including celebrity – is hugely problematic for the industry as a whole, because it represents a decline in the engagement with the core female constituency," says McCabe, who points out that 80% of magazine sales in the UK are to women.

However, some magazines in more premium sectors, such as monthly titles that attract high-end fashion, have proved to be remarkably resilient. "Within each genre there are titles well differentiated and clear in the market, readers and advertisers are cutting back and there are a lot of also-rans out there," says McCabe. "Magazines like Vogue and Elle are doing well, Cosmopolitan too on its shift to digital, there will be two or three winners in over-supplied sectors."

Stephen Quinn, the genteel Vogue publishing director, says the 98-year-old "fashion bible" had its most profitable year in 2013.

Quinn said that when he started on Vogue in 1992, at the same time as long-serving editor Alexandra Shulman, it sold 193,000 copies. Latest official print sales figures are the same – and rise to just over 201,000 when digital editions are included. "I deal with Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Giorgio Armani and Gucci and of course these companies have grown phenomenally, and they always want a strong consolidated position in the 20 or so Vogue's around the world," he says.

He admits that the title took a hammering in the recession – clawing back from the loss of 400 pages of ads in 2009 – but over the past 10 years as a whole net revenues are up a quarter. He is dismissive of the challenge of new arrival Porter, the print upstart from luxury online fashion firm Net-a-Porter, but says most of his traditional rivals are holding their own.

"To be successful in the weekly arena is a tough one, you've got to be thinking with that mass-market sensibility," he says. "Covering personalities in pop, music and young actors and actresses and there is a lot of competition."

With lad culture moving online and the rise of the more health-conscious male, there is a previously unthinkable new leader in the men's market: Men's Health.

Despite the rise of free titles Shortlist and Sport, which are given away to almost 850,000 punters a week, Men's Health is the biggest title in the men's sector. "The big success story of the last decade is Men's Health," says one former men's magazine editor. "It has tapped into masculinity in the real world, metrosexuality, it is not the GQs of this world that have benefited from that revolution."

In 2003 Men's Health sold 220,000 copies, a decade later and that number is 203,000 and growing, without including its significant sales on Apple Newsstand.

"There has been a resilience but not an immunity," admits editor Toby Wiseman.

"The kind of material a lot of magazines are dealing in you can readily get elsewhere. I ram into writers and editors the notion of service journalism, once it is read it can be taken away and used."

Wiseman believes it is not just a case of watching the slow death of the printed product. "I think it is a lazy supposition to say print will go and digital will take over, I don't think that will ever happen," he says.

"My personal ambition is to think different platforms engender different kinds of consumer behaviour. How to distill your brand on to the platform that best suits consumer behaviour. The fact that no one is selling more than 20,000 copies a month on Apple Newsstand means it isn't the future yet."

Magazine circulation

Vogue

Circulation in 2003, Jul-Dec: 202,259 (monthly average print)

Circulation in 2013, Jul-Dec: 192,763 (monthly average print)

Heat

Circulation in 2003, Jul-Dec: 566,731 (average print)

Circulation in 2013, Jul-Dec: 241, 328 (average print)

Empire:

Circulation in 2003, Jan-June: 181,768 (average print)

Circulation in 2013, Jul-Dec: 145,117 (average print)

 

OK!

Circulation in 2003 Jul-Dec: 570,927 (average print)

Circulation in 2013, Jul-Dec: 301,355 (average print)

Men's Health

Circulation in 2003, Jul-Dec: 220,446 (monthly average print)

Circulation in 2013, Jul-Dec: 203,053 (monthly average print)

 

Marie Claire

Circulation in 2003, Jul-Dec: 360,789 (monthly average print)

Circulation in 2013, Jun-Dec 2013: 225,708 (monthly average print)

Glamour

Circulation in 2003, Jul-Dec: 582,690 (average print)

Circulation in 2013, Jul-Dec: 410,480 (average print