The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to broadcast a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
