AVPlayer kicks device off Airplay

On an Apple TV, if you have an app that triggers a video playing in AVPlayer while another device is air playing to the Apple TV. The device gets disconnected from Airplay and the video plays instead. There doesn't seem to be a way to sense that Airplay is happening or not happening from the Apple TV side programmatically or a way to prevent the behavior. Is this intentional? It would seem to make more sense to have Airplay take priority or push the app to the background.