The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into 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 serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
