The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
