AccuRadio, the fastest growing webcaster, knows it’s coming, every year: the telltale spike in listening to the sounds of romance, sharp as Cupid’s arrow. In 2015, the listenership of AccuRadio’s most lovey-dovey channels jumped in early February by more than 50% from the month before, as hopeful lovers tuned in to hear everything from golden oldies and recent romantic hits, to the romance of Beautiful Music or the yearning of a good country love ballad. Comparing five-week periods, Love Songs-related channels saw a 92% increase in listener traffic. This year will be no exception with AccuRadio’s Valentine’s flagship channel “Love Songs,” and others like “Classic R&B Love Songs,” “Beautiful Music,” “Oldies Love Songs,” and “Listeners' Top 100 Love Songs” which is compiled based on songs rated by listeners. AccuRadio will also launch new channels for lovers like “R&B Romance,” “Classic Rock Love Songs,” and even “Romantic Aria” featuring romantic opera compositions. But that’s only half the story: Many of us, lovestruck or otherwise, might dread the pink hearts and relentless romance, and acknowledge that sometimes love stinks. That’s exactly what AccuRadio programmer Eric Bowden felt, as a post-breakup Valentine’s Day approached in 2013. He decided to turn the music that had been speaking to him and helping him through his tough times into a playlist for the heartbroken. “I started with the music I had been retreating into over the past couple of months and expanded it to include other classic songs of breakups and love gone wrong,” explains Bowden. “I really enjoyed building a channel that was less focused on genre, and more centered around a unifying theme.The process of putting this particular playlist together, gave me an outlet for all of my heartache, and definitely helped me pick up and move on. Not everyone is always happy at this time of year, and that's why I'm glad I was able to share.” Bowden started with a Fiona Apple song, “Werewolf,” that moved him, but soon expanded into other sounds. Like a lot of thematic playlists at AccuRadio, genre is less important than creating a unified set that’s great to listen to, much like a well-constructed radio program on a freeform station might be. “The goal was to keep it listenable with a mix of Indie and Alternative rock, with a few dashes of pop and R&B, and anything else that fit the mold,” notes Bowden. “Love is a Bummer” was born. The channel may not have the passionate positive outlook of AccuRadio’s love song channels, but they all have something in common: human curators who give listeners the right warm fuzzies. “ A channel like Love Songs is a great example of the power of our human curation,” says Paul Maloney, AccuRadio VP for Programming. “Our music programmers know the material, and understand what works to set a romantic mood -- I really don't think algorithm-driven automation can replicate listening experiences like these as effectively." AccuRadio (“Better radio for your workday”) offers over 975 expertly-curated channels of rock, pop, R&B, jazz, country, classical, pop standards, Broadway, Christmas music, world music, and more, targeting an upscale, educated, at-work P35-64 demographic. AccuRadio is America’s fastest-growing music-based webcaster according to the past six months (January-June 2015) of Triton Digital’s “Webcast Metrics Top 20” monthly rankers in terms of year-over-year growth rate (Average Active Sessions, Mon.-Sun. 6a-12m, domestic). AccuRadio also consistently has the highest Average Time Spent Listening (ATSL) of all personalizable radio brands. Each month, over a million unique listeners (largely in the U.S., Canada, and Japan) tune into AccuRadio via its website (www.accuradio.com) and its top-rated mobile apps.