The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
