A method for changing channels in a multicast adaptive bitrate (MABR) communications network (100A, 100B), the method comprising: receiving a channel change request from a set-top-box device disposed in a subscriber premises to change to a target service channel provided as a plurality of MABR streams, each MABR stream corresponding to a particular bitrate representation of the target service channel having a different bitrate than each other MABR stream, wherein the subscriber premises includes one or more progressive download ABR client devices; determining a select bitrate representation of the target service channel to which the requesting STB device is to be switched, where the select bitrate representation is a bitrate representation of the target service channel selected such that its corresponding recovery segment allows switching to the target service channel at a highest possible bitrate quality while satisfying a channel change render time threshold within at least a portion of a progressive download ABR pipe's bandwidth constraints; generating a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request to obtain the recovery segment from a cached storage, the recovery segment having a matching bitrate corresponding to the select bitrate representation of the target service channel; joining the requesting STB device to a multicast ABR stream having the select bitrate representation of the target service channel using the recovery segment downloaded from the cached storage, wherein the recovery segment is transmitted in a temporary shared fast channel change pipe borrowed from the progressive download ABR bandwidth pipe portion of a subscriber premises bandwidth pipe allocated to the subscriber premises; upon completion of joining the requesting STB device to the target service channel at the select bitrate representation, restoring the temporary shared FCC pipe's bandwidth to the progressive download ABR bandwidth pipe portion and adjusting the one or more progressive download ABR client devices' bitrates associated with their respective download sessions; and if the select bitrate representation of the target service channel is not at a correct bitrate quality provisioned for the requesting STB device, allocating or reallocating at least a portion of the bandwidth of the subscriber premises bandwidth pipe to ensure that the correct bitrate quality for the target service channel is reached. receiving a channel change request from a set-top-box device disposed in a subscriber premises to change to a target service channel provided as a plurality of MABR streams, each MABR stream corresponding to a particular bitrate representation of the target service channel having a different bitrate than each other MABR stream, wherein the subscriber premises includes one or more progressive download ABR client devices; determining a select bitrate representation of the target service channel to which the requesting STB device is to be switched, where the select bitrate representation is a bitrate representation of the target service channel selected such that its corresponding recovery segment allows switching to the target service channel at a highest possible bitrate quality while satisfying a channel change render time threshold within at least a portion of a progressive download ABR pipe's bandwidth constraints; generating a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request to obtain the recovery segment from a cached storage, the recovery segment having a matching bitrate corresponding to the select bitrate representation of the target service channel; joining the requesting STB device to a multicast ABR stream having the select bitrate representation of the target service channel using the recovery segment downloaded from the cached storage, wherein the recovery segment is transmitted in a temporary shared fast channel change pipe borrowed from the progressive download ABR bandwidth pipe portion of a subscriber premises bandwidth pipe allocated to the subscriber premises; upon completion of joining the requesting STB device to the target service channel at the select bitrate representation, restoring the temporary shared FCC pipe's bandwidth to the progressive download ABR bandwidth pipe portion and adjusting the one or more progressive download ABR client devices' bitrates associated with their respective download sessions; and if the select bitrate representation of the target service channel is not at a correct bitrate quality provisioned for the requesting STB device, allocating or reallocating at least a portion of the bandwidth of the subscriber premises bandwidth pipe to ensure that the correct bitrate quality for the target service channel is reached.