The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
