You can look at the complaints about the BBC hindering the commercial sector going back years, the more recent complaints about the BBC being to popular and doing stuff "best left to the commercial sector"..
The history of the BBC being forced to shut services after complaints from commercial companies (who then didn't offer anything comparable*).
It's one of those things where it doesn't take a genius to work out that if the BBC is being forced to make cost savings (IIRC they've had a real terms funding cut of over 20% in the last few years**), then the services that are likely to face the axe first are the ones where there is supposedly a commercial alternative.
If the recipes are taken down completely as opposed to just mothballed, I'm going to miss them, as they're often easier to find and better than the versions in cookery books, and as they're intended for a UK user base they normally give you ingredients under the UK names, and that are easily available in the UK (as opposed to say a name that might mean something instantly to an American, but mean nothing to a Brit).
*IIRC it was the text and revision book companies who basically campaigned (sucessfully) for the BBC to shut down/stop updating one of the best educational resources on the internet for people doing GCSE's.
**A combination of a funding freeze, being tasked with funding services that used to be paid for by the government, the over 75's licences (which is going to be a big one in the next few years), and money being diverted away from the BBC to pay for commercial initiatives.
