The present invention relates to the field of communications technologies, and discloses a method, an apparatus, and a system for allocating Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) resources to save bandwidth resources in the IPTV service. The method includes the following: a multicast access control entity allocates resources to a unicast access control entity through an intermediate network entity when unicast resources are not enough; and the unicast access control entity allocates resources to the multicast access control entity through the intermediate network entity when multicast resources are not enough. The present invention is primarily applicable to IPTV technologies.