According to the teachings presented herein, a method and apparatus provide a reduced search space for blindly decoding a message included in a signal received at a communication receiver, where the message has an unknown format. Improving blind detection efficiency in this manner offers numerous advantages, including but not limited to lower power consumption through reduced processing overhead, and lower power consumption through expanded sleep opportunities. As a non-limiting example, the communication receiver comprises a mobile station configured for operation according to Long Term Evolution (LTE) standards, as promulgated by the 3GPP for E-UTRA systems, where the mobile station is configured to reduce a search space of DCI message decoding by determining message format likelihoods and blindly decoding a received DCI message based on the message format likelihoods.