The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
