The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
