The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
