Yes I think the pay per view would be pretty key for the satellite company to make money also. I could see the pay per view rental model itself being an interesting stand alone business model. But I think you have to throw in some advertising supported channels for it to make sense from a customer standpoint of plunking down a couple hundred bucks for equipment and maybe more for an install.
But if literally almost every household and bar in the country had satellite hooked up because the only cost was an upfront $200 in equipment that you could install yourself or hire someone to install, then that means over a hundred million households plus some number of businesses that might be willing to plop down $10 or $20 on any given month on top of all the additional advertising revenue from a larger viewing audience.
And if it is rolled out incrementally with a good selection of a few mass market oriented channels along with some niche channels, then I don't see it undercutting the existing core business nearly as much as it adds to it to have new dishes pointing up with customers having an opportunity to become paying customers with a few clicks or a phone call.
Sure, there might be some people who just go for the free option over paying $20 per month, but they were probably likely to just go with Internet streaming anyway if that is the case. Anyway, I think whichever company can make this work with the right mix of channels, pay per view and add-on services, and a good roll out, then they are going to be a big winner and it will really benefit consumers also.