The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
