A router is coupled to sources of multicast streams and to multicast consumer hosts through one or more network elements, for managing multicast streams sent to hosts through the one or more network elements using subscriber circuits. The interface between the router and the network elements includes, but is not limited to, a remote multicast replication interface. Reports are received from a host on a subscriber circuit. The subscriber circuit is coupled between the router and the host. The report indicates a request to receive a multicast stream that is associated with a group object. A reference counter associated with the group object is incremented and the requested multicast stream is added to a remote multicast replication circuit if the reference counter transitions from zero upon incrementing.