BBC's chief technology officer sacked weeks after being suspended for spending £98million on an 'overly-ambitious IT project'

• John Linwood, who had a £280,000 salary, was suspended in May
• He was in charged of the disastrous Digital Media Initiative
• Doomed project was meant to revolutionise BBC archives
• But it was branded a huge waste of money by Director General Tony HallThe BBC's chief technology officer was sacked weeks after being suspended over the multimillion-pound failure of an ambitious IT project, it has been revealed.
  John Linwood was suspended in May when the BBC launched a review into how the bill for the failing Digital Media Initiative (DMI), an attempt to create a digital production system and archive, had come to £98.4 million.
  
  

  
  

  Sacked: John Linwood, pictured, did not have his £280,000 contract renewed
  
  
  

  
  

  'Huge waste': BBC Director General Tony Hall, pictured, axed the project weeks after taking up the job
  
  A BBC spokesman said: 'We can confirm that John Linwood is no longer employed by the BBC.'
  He added that Mr Linwood, who earned £280,000 a year, left the corporation in July when his contract was ended and did not receive a pay-off.
  Director-general Tony Hall announced DMI was being scrapped only weeks after he took over the top job at the BBC. He said that to continue it would be 'throwing good money after bad'.
  He said it had 'wasted a huge amount of licence fee-payers' money' and added that he 'saw no reason to allow that to continue'.
  A report into the project by PricewaterhouseCoopers was published last month and found that key controls on the project were 'not fit for purpose'.