A communication method and an apparatus, the method including generating a demodulation reference signal (DMRS) sequence of a broadcast signal according to a pseudo-random sequence c(m), where the DMRS sequence is related to a quantity NRB of resource blocks (RBs) of the broadcast signal and a quantity nRE of resource elements (REs) occupied by the DMRS sequence in one RB, and mapping the DMRS sequence to one or more symbols.