tvOS AVPlayer - Any way to stop video playback & downloading and keep audio?

We have an video app that puts up it's own screen saver after some idle time to prevent TV screen burn-in. Is there a way to stop video (including downloading segments) while still maintaining audio playback?

I see the currentItem has different tracks and can enable/disable closed captioning for instance, but this doesn't work for the video track. Is it even possible?

-B