Reception apparatus and method for reducing time delay in channel switching

A reception apparatus receiving a stream delivered by multicast through a network includes: a stream receiving a stream of a first channel as a viewing stream and one or more streams of second channels as viewing candidate streams; a buffer section storing the streams of the channels received by the stream reception section; a reproduction processing section performing processing for viewing the stream stored as the viewing stream in the buffer section; and a channel causing, when an instruction to switch over, as a viewing target, from the first channel to any one of the second channels of the streams being received as the viewing candidate streams is input, the reproduction processing section to process as the viewing stream the stream corresponding to the second channel and stored in the buffer section, and the stream to receive the stream as the viewing stream.