EMS Award 2009

METEOWEEKEND premiata dalla European Meteorological Society

Il 2 ottobre 2009, nel corso del meeting annuale della Società Meteorologica Europea (EMS) tenutosi a Toulouse in Francia, la trasmissione ideata e curata da Marco Virgilio, in onda tutti i venerdì sera sull'emittente Telefriuli, ha ricevuto un prestigioso riconoscimento a livello europeo risultando vincitrice nella sezione Media and Communictaion session dell'Outreach and Communications Award 2009.
Grande la soddisfazione per Marco Virgilio, per l'emittente regionale TELEFRIULI e per tutta l'Unione Meteorologica del Friuli Venezia Giulia rappresentata da una nutrita delegazione.
METEOWEEKEND è stata apprezzata per il suo notevole potenziale divulgativo in materia di Meteorologia e climatologia raggiunto grazie al buon equilibrio tra previsioni meteorologiche complete e professionali valide per l'area triveneta e nazioni confinanti, selezione di argomenti ed approfondimenti di grande interesse per il pubblico locale, elevato profilo in campo tecnico-scientifico degli ospiti invitati nelle oltre 40 puntate annuali, chiarezza e semplicità di linguaggio.

METEOWEEKEND è un caso praticamente unico in Italia, una trasmissione della durata di quasi mezz'ora in onda in prima serata, interamente dedicata a temi scientifici, in particolare alle scienze che si occupano di studiare l'atmosfera e a tutti quegli ambiti della vita di tutti i giorni in qualche modo influenzati dall'andamento meteorologico e climatico. Tutte le settimane METEOWEEKEND è seguita da un pubblico molto ampio a testimonianza che la buona informazione, la divulgazione di argomenti apparentemente ostici, può incontrare il gradimento di un vasto pubblico. Questo premio è dedicato alla fruttuosa ed ormai lunga collaborazione tra Marco Virgilio e l'emittente Telefriuli che ha creduto nella bontà del progetto, oltre che alla grande passione di molti corregionali per la Meteorologia, passione ben evidente dalla grande partecipazione alle iniziative dell'UMFVG.

Di seguito le motivazioni espresse dall'EMS in occasione della premiazione (testo originale in lingua inglese)

TV serial Meteoweekend, Italy

Meteoweekend is an interesting educational-communication project that has been successfully carried on by a local TV broadcast network operating in Friuli Venezia Giulia region, the north-eastern Italian region, during the last three years. The project is carried on by Marco Virgilio, the weather forecaster of the Telefriuli broadcast private company which is broadcasting in northeastern Italy.
The goal of the project is to make meteorological education and information through a regular television program which is scheduled in a fixed day of the week, Friday at dinner time, all over the year.

The innovative content of such a program is the synergic combination of the scientific meteorological information with the classical TV weather forecasts. In fact, it is well known that weather forecasts, especially for the weekend, attracts a lot the audience. Besides forecasts, the core of the program is that in each issue a professional expert is invited to discuss about a selected meteorological and environmental topic. During the issue, visual references to suitable web pages and web sites are also made to allow interested viewers to enter in the details of the considered topic.

"Meteo Weekend" is always opened with an overview forecast for the incoming week at the synoptic scale giving also some hints on the local scale explaining the downscaling applied. Weather maps are shown. That overture lasts five minutes, next the expert and the topic of the week are presented and a series of question are addressed to the expert who answers. Since the topic is scheduled well in advance, the expert provides multimedia material that is used along the issue to support the answers. The expert interview is thirty minutes long but it is split in two parts. Between the two parts the broadcast forecaster enters in the details of the weekend weather forecasts. At the end of the expert interview the final considerations on the next week weather at the local scale are addressed.
To allow the maximum number of people to access the television program, "Meteo Weekend" is reproduced five times during the weekend at different times of day. Thanks also to the long experience in meteorology, operational weather forecasts, and communication of Marco Virgilio the program has one of the most important shares of the broadcast. The program has promoted aggregation of meteorology amateurs and acts as a powerful channel to bring continental and global meteorological news to the local audience. As an example EMS, AMS, WMO and other organization activities are explained to the audience, integrating informative reference to the corresponding web sites.
In such a way a huge amount of meteorological topics have been presented and the feedback from the audience is rewarding every week. Requests to consider a topic again with further details are not rare. The long lasting of the program, the large amount of feedback and the large share all witness to the success of the program.