Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, receiving, at a router forming an ingress router in a point-to-multipoint network, a point-to-multipoint dataflow comprising a plurality of packets, forwarding, to a data network, packets of the point-to-multipoint dataflow for communication to a plurality of point-to-multipoint receivers along respective Label Switched Paths, the plurality of point-to-multipoint receivers associated with one or more egress nodes of the point-to-multipoint network, identifying a network failure between the router and a nexthop router for one Label Switched Path, and routing packets of the point-to-multipoint dataflow according to a preexisting unicast backup Label Switched Path for the one Label Switched Path. Other embodiments are disclosed.