The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
