A system and method for effectuating channel changes in a multicast adaptive bitrate (MABR) streaming network using temporarily borrowed bandwidth from a shared progressive download ABR bandwidth pipe for downloading a requested channel's data in a recovery segment by issuing an HTTP request. A video management agent is configured to stitch the recovery segment's data with the regular channel stream during the channel change to generate a hybrid stream, which is multicast streamed toward the requesting device. Once the data from the regular channel stream is properly joined, recovery segment downloading ceases and the bandwidth consumed for sending recovery data is released back to the progressive download ABR pipe.