Several embodiments include a cache system in a media distribution network. The cache system can coalesce content requests that specify the same URL. The cache system can select one or more representative content requests from the coalesced content requests. The cache system can send one or more lookup requests corresponding to the representative content requests while delaying further processing of the coalesced content requests other than the representative content requests. The cache system can receive a content object associated with the URL in response to sending the lookup requests. The cache system can respond to a delayed content request after the content object is cached by sending the cached content object to a requesting device.