The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."
