The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
