On February 7, ABC announced that "Turn-On" would go on hiatus. Instead of the scheduled February 12 episode, the "ABC Wednesday Night Movie" ("The Oscar", screenwritten by Ellison and itself a notorious flop) would start 30 minutes early. This announcement came after the following week's "TV Guide" went to press; it published a listing for the scheduled February 12 episode, which would have starred Robert Culp and then-wife France Nuyen as hosts. Finally, on February 10, the show was formally canceled. By this time, WEWS, KBTV, and KATV all told ABC that they would not air the show again; with several other affiliates having already turned it down, it no longer made financial sense to air it. ABC received 369 calls of complaint during the show, compared to 20 supporting it. Network officials told the sponsor, Bristol-Myers, that the show was unacceptable, and Bristol-Myers ordered Schlatter and Friendly to end production. Many assumed the show's title was itself an implicit reference to Timothy Leary's pro-drug maxim, "Turn on, tune in, drop out".