The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
