A system (100) for enabling a user to select media content in an entertainment environment, comprising a remote control device (110) having a set of user-activated keys and a speech activation circuit adapted to enable a speech signal; a speech engine (160) comprising a speech recognizer (170); an application wrapper (180) configured to recognize substantive meaning in the speech signal; and a media content controller (190) configured to select media content. Every function that can be executed by activation of the user-activated keys can also be executed by the speech engine (160) in response to the recognized substantive meaning.