The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
