Never mind the rights to songs by Limp Bizkit and Justin Timberlake, what excites Vivendi about buying Bertelsmann's BMG music publishing group is Christian rock. The French group yesterday rebuffed claims that the €1.63bn (£1.1bn) its Universal arm has agreed to pay is too steep, as management highlighted the acquisition of the world's biggest Christian rock and gospel catalogue.

BMG has almost 60,000 copyrights on Christian music and its songs have been recorded by stars of the religious music world such as Jeremy Camp. In the US, religious music takes a bigger share of the market than jazz and classical combined.

Vivendi's chief executive, Jean-Bernard Lévy, said: "This is the right price for these rare assets."