The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
