The British broadcaster engaged in 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 official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
