The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
