A receiver (300) is provided that efficiently determines what transport format combination is currently being utilized by a transmitter (200) multiplexing (201) several transport channels onto a single over-the-air channel (209). The receiver (300) estimates the transmitted sequence and, not knowing the format combination being utilized, makes estimates of the information bits for each of the possible transport format combinations. CRC metrics are determined (one for each transport or data channel) for each possible transport format combination, and these CRC metrics are combined into a single transport format combination metric for the particular transport format combination being tested.