In the advanced digital terrestrial/television multimedia broadcasting (DTMB-A) standard, a preamble based on distance detection (PBDD) is adopted for robust synchronization and signalling transmission. However, traditional signalling detection method will completely fail to work under severe frequency selective channels with ultra-long delay spread 0dB echoes. In this paper, a novel transmission parameter signalling detection method is proposed for the preamble in DTMB-A. Compared with the conventional signalling detection method, the proposed scheme works much better when the maximum channel delay is close to the length of the guard interval (GI). Both theoretical analyses and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the accuracy and robustness of detecting the transmitted signalling.