The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
