[DTV]

I think the journalism is certainly the best it's ever been - you're right there. I don't know if it's necessarily that they have surpassed the BBC, or that the BBC's standards have slipped slightly due to less money/resources - probably a bit of both.

I think you are right about it being a bit of both - in terms of human interest, they've both converged near a similar point having once been toward either end of the 'news you need to know' vs 'news you want to know' spectrum (though there is still a bit of difference). In political reporting, the BBC is so anodyne these days that it'd've been hard for Sky not to take advantage - but they're quite good for policy these days and have certainly shook off the image of presenters getting into arguments with guests, which was a bit of an issue a while back.

There are certainly areas where it'd be hard to overtake the BBC - I don't think any British news outlet is comparable on Asian or African stories. But there are areas which the BBC has seemingly vacated that nobody has taken advantage of - the BBC gave up on European politics about 20 years ago and nobody has since filled that void - even on slow news days, general elections in even quite reasonably sized countries like the Netherlands struggle to get on the running order across the board.