custom radio station

[unpakwon]

Please help me understand the following in red.

... to put music on your iPod, you had to import tunes from your own CDs or get it from another service, probably an illegal one.
The music industry, uncertain about how to stem the free exchange of music, was offering subscriptions to music services, sort of like a custom radio station. You could listen to songs but you couldn't store and keep them.

Does the first one just mean the music industry "was allowing people to use music services"? And what is a "custom radio station"?

Thank you.

[JohnParis]

A subscription to anything generally implies that you have to pay for the services being offered. In this case, the music industry was offering subscriptions (for a fee) so that you would be able to create something similar to your own personal radio station (a custom radio station). It might have been better if the author of the paragraph had used "customized" rather than "custom".

[unpakwon]

Thank you for the help.

[emsr2d2]

For info, I agree with JohnParis that "customised radio station" would have been a better phrase (note the -ised ending in BrE).