The right Fabric ?

The external financial monitoring of the BBC means it always gets kicked two or three times when there's an NAO investigation.  First, when the NAO publishes its report.  Then again, when the Commons Public Accounts Committee, minder of the NAO boat squad, invites the BBC management in for open interview to respond to the NAO's findings.  And finally, when the PAC publishes its response to the report and interview.  All through the process, Fleet Street's outrage at the "mismanagement" generally increases exponentially. 

However, in the case of Digital Media Initiative, I think the outside world has every reason to be outraged with the BBC. How many archive programmes does it make a year ?   How many times a year do the producers of The One Show need immediate online access to material from Dad's Army, Nigella Cooks, The Weakest Link etc ?   How many times a year does BBC Bristol need pictures from BBC Scotland ?   Smaller local networks, with pools of shared material make perfect sense, as does buying standard systems that talk to each other.  Only the BBC in its old pomp would try to lead the market by developing its own gargantuan system, of a scale and ambition unequalled anywhere else in the world, rather than waiting for suppliers to come through with scaleable systems.  Only the BBC would still try to claim it'll come good in the end. £133m is the estimated cost of the project through to 2017.   I'd like to bet that doesn't include the PR/Comms cost defending it - or the DG's time on committees rescuing the thing.