The link budget cost will vary on popularity of the satellite, length of contract, bandwidth, footprint, power levels, priority and services provided. Over the years I have worked with dozens of services and their satellite leases. For comparison, a simple turn of a radio service on an unpopular and inclined orbit satellite could be under $1k per month. A good quality HD video channel on a popular bird could be $30k or more. A typical SD TV channel on 97w KU might be contracted for $12-$17k.
If a service isn't needing to be grouped with like services (for example expat channels on 97w), great deals are to be found on less popular satellites. The downside to being on a less popular satellite is that the downlinker may not have available hardware to pick-up the service from a different satellite and the service might have an increased hardware budget to provide their channel to contracted carriers.
Satellite distribution is the most economical way to distribute if the network will be more than 15-20 downlinks. With IP/fiber distribution, the operating cost increases with each drop. With satellite, this cost decreases with each downlink.