The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
