A method and an apparatus for reducing channel switching delay in a digital broadcast receiver are provided. The digital broadcast receiver includes a signal reception unit, which receives a broadcast signal and converts the received broadcast signal into an intermediate frequency (IF) signal, a digital demodulation unit, which retrieves a transport stream from the IF signal, a demultiplexing unit, which extracts a video signal from the transport stream by parsing the transport stream, a video decoder, which retrieves a video image from the video signal by decoding the video signal, and an output selection unit, which prevents a background image from being output and outputs the video image when sensing a first intra frame of the video signal input to the video decoder after the digital broadcast receiver is switched to a new channel.