According to one example embodiment disclosed herein, there is provided a system and an article of manufacture allowing a set top box to be controlled from an interactive voice response unit. A system according to an example embodiment may include a set top box control processor having a common-layer application interface and a control plug-in framework. An interactive voice processor obtains voice inputs from a voice call and through the set top box control processor remotely accesses control features of a set top box. The set top box control processor performs command process management to manage set top box commands including changing channels and controlling volume. Other embodiments are disclosed.