The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
