The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
