An apparatus and method for WIC/LIC estimation without channel mode construction in a MediaFLO.TM. system comprising a receiver, a transmitter and transmission channel, wherein the method comprises receiving a signal comprising a MediaFLO.TM. mobile multimedia multicast system superframe comprising WIC/LIC symbols; setting a first sparseness index value of the digital signal to zero; setting a local copy WIC/LIC number of the digital signal to one; generating a local copy of all possible values of the WIC/LIC symbols corresponding to a WID/LID value from zero to fifteen; dividing the received WIC/LIC symbol values by a local copy WIC/LIC value corresponding to WIC/LIC number one; performing an IFFT of all the possible values of the WIC and LIC symbols; calculating a second sparseness index value of the IFFT of sixteen possible values of the WIC/LIC symbols; and extracting a WIC/LIC symbol from the digital signal corresponding to the second sparseness index.