you can lose your ass with ppv too, i think ppv even more in fact. People could pay the minimum fee to get into ppv networks and thats already a stretch for them. Then they start sending traffic and they notice NOTHING converts, they then struggle until they quit with the traffic source altogether.
PPC is much more manageable and easy in some cases. First decide if you want to use search or banner ads, ppc is a broad term. And then is you want to use search go to yahoo or msn and just use that 200 that you would have used with the ppv networks and just test one vertical with many different offers, different ad copys, and landing pages, systematically. then scale on the stuff that works.
Both can work, you just have to look around for the information. Pick one source and then just dive in head first.