The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
