The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
