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 offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
