Talk's provider seemed primarily useless (6)

I haven't cracked this one yet — but the brilliant team at Fifteensquared have:

TED (abbreviation of Technology, Entertainment, Design = an organisation that provides recordings of conference talks), with WAS (seemed?) at the front (primarily). I’m not sure why we’re expected to equate “was” and “seemed”; surely the point of the verb “seem” is that appearances can’t always be trusted. Wasted = unnecessary = useless.