Online video streaming site YouTube may soon offer viewers a way to banish irritating ads from the popular site: pay for a subscription.

The option would require the user to pay a fee for ad-free access.

YouTube chief Susan Wojcicki has also confirmed rumours the video site is working on a streaming service to compete with the likes of Spotify and Pandora.

“YouTube right now is ad-supported, which is really great in the sense that it has enabled us to scale to a billion users; anyone can access the content,” Wojcicki says in an online video clip of her appearance on Monday at a technology conference in California.

“But there are going to be cases where people will say, ‘I don’t want to see the ads,’ or, ‘I want to have a different experience.'”

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Wojcicki provided few details about the music service but said she was optimistic the music service would debut soon.

“We are thinking about how to give users options,” Wojcicki said.

– with AAP