The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
