The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, 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 full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
