The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
