The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
