The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line 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 accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
