The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
