The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
