The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
