Sky News has never turned a profit because it was never designed or intended to be a profitable part of the Sky business.
It's value to Sky (and by extension Uncle Rupert) was influence and credibility, especially in 1989 when Sky was not to be taken seriously. We've always known that this was the model so to play Sky News as the card to say that in the UK news
can't
be profitable is disingenuous.
News channels can and are managing to be successful all over Europe and beyond. Still, in 2019. In many territories, so are local channels.
Spain has its autonomous region channels (govt funded), and it's local channels (private), France has BFM TV Paris. Canada has City. There are examples too in Russia, Asia.
Yes, there's American local TV too - but I'll try to avoid mentioning them as for some reason it seems to make some quite defensive, competitive and borderline irrational. Never really understood why.
The thing that's key though it that people won't watch crap that has no relevance to them. This is the problem with most of our local TV.... It's utter crap, trivial to the point of irrelevant and nobody is interested. There is still a strong appetite for local news, however.
This is the best assessment of this topic so far. Sky News proves that, in most cases, a news channel can be run either as a loss-making prestige "public service" operation to impress the regulators and the political/cultural elites, or as a profitable commercial venture -- but not both.
The part in bold also puzzles me immensely.