Shush !

You Don't Have to Mention It anymore.

New DG Tony Hall has decided to cancel the BBC's Digital Media Initiative. He notes that the project has spent over £98m since 2010 - the MPs of the Public Accounts Committee and the NAO will note that it's been running since 2008, so that's not the full cost of this folly.

The plan was to create a huge, tapeless, digital archive, accessible at most desktops across the BBC, but the only relic of DMI will be the unloved Fabric, which film and video researchers complained was slower to search than the old libraries cataloguing hard copies.

It's a symptom of a continuing ideological problem for the BBC; there are still too many who believe it's such a special organisation that it always requires special technical solutions - and jobs, careers and consultancy fees can be built on that misguided belief. And it's another problem that Mark Thompson clearly didn't monitor properly.  Will anyone be brought to account ?

• MPs might like to ask how much was spent before 2008, when the project was being developed; and how much of the original approved £81m budget was spent between 2008 and 2010. They should also note that projects above £50m require the full approval of the experts at the BBC Trust. The 2008 structure shows the project co-sponsored by BBC Vision and BBC Future Media and Technology. BBC Chief Technology Officer John Linwood joined in 2009 from Yahoo and with 11 years at Microsoft. He's been suspended - he hasn't been seen since Tuesday.