The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
