The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
